Lake Annecy in the French Alps now fits into that second exception. Thanks to frequent visits to dear friends who’ve lived here for six years, I can now retreat to this beautiful part of the world for pure R&R. Sleeping in instead of clambering around local castles. Reading on the patio rather than poking about Annecy’s historic streets. Helping my godson with his homework rather than discovering Alpine villages. Nipping down to the local SuperU for groceries and dining in rather than checking out local restaurants. Lolling on the local beach rather than feeding the brain. And thus went much of our recent summer holiday.That’s not to say we restricted ourselves to our holiday home. Just that I felt no burning need to go out. Instead, I worked in the occasional outing, usually for a few hours in the afternoon, guided by tips from locals rather than the tyranny of lists. (One imagines this is how other people might approach holidays all the time…)
A more leisurely observation reveals that the variety of life in this valley is impressive. The tourist appeal is obvious: spectacular scenery, charming city, historic sights. The range of outdoor pursuits makes it a mecca for adrenaline junkies; paragliders flock over the valley like starlings. An enormous expat community, linked to Geneva but seeking a more reasonable cost of living here, ensures a sophisticated level of shops and services in villages that appear charmingly rural. (Only the broadband speeds, sadly, match the antiquity of the views.) More surprising, perhaps, is a backbone of heavy industry. Pretty Alpine streams can drive machinery as well as tourism. Turns out these mountains were busy in the industrial revolution. Ugine, at the eastern end of the lake’s valley, is still a big producer of specialist steel.
LAND OF MILK AND HONEY
Older industries here are indisputably more picturesque. The mother of them all is dairy. Our first Sunday coincided with the St. Jorioz village fair. Despite all the corporate and industrial influences in the valley, this was profoundly and joyfully agricultural. Fresh-picked apples went into an old-fashioned press and in to bottles for sale. Local game had been transformed into terrines. Step up to the honey stand and taste the terroir of four seasons: obviously, bees are visiting different flowers in each, and the taste of their output varies dramatically. There’s a petting zoo to visit the full range of farm animals, including some particularly handsome geese.
But it’s the milk producers … cows and goats … who take centre stage. In a world of extremes, where lush, green summers flip into long, snow-bound winters, turning milk into preservable food allowed survival. Centuries of necessity later, this region is a cheese-lover’s heaven. In the cow competition that is the climax of the village festival, it is not just about beauty; each animal is evaluated on how many litres of milk, and thus wheels of reblochon, she produced over a year. While the cows work on the rich grasses of the mountain valleys, goats clamber at higher elevations and eat scrub, meaning there's probably even more goats' cheese here than cow.
Beaufort is delicious on its own but is also typically melted with white wine to make the local fondue. Wheels of soft Reblochon are the centrepiece of another local classic, tartiflette. (Imagine macaroni and cheese, but with potato rather than pasta.) Giant slabs of Emmental also await the guillotine, straw yellow and strewn with holes. There's a whole case of different Tommes, softer and more aromatic, this mountain cheese can be made from cow, goat or ewe's milk. Beyond that, there's another case just for the range of local goats' cheeses.
And you've barely started. Because this little shop celebrates all kinds of local produce. So there's also a fantastic meat counter, stocked with everything from the veal that's a byproduct of the dairy industry to wild boar hunted from the mountain slopes. Another counter offers a range of cured meats and sausages. Terrines and other preserved foods stand in jars next to local honeys, fruit liquors and syrups. And then there's the local wine and beer and, if you're particularly brave, the local spirit known as genepi, which is a distillation of wormwood.
Some basic French is useful here; this isn't a touristy place. Patience is also required if you're here on a weekend or after work, when locals are all coming in to buy this essential part of the Alpine diet. You may queue for half an hour, but watching the cheese guillotine do its stuff will entertain you.
WORKING OFF THE FAT
The region's carb- and cheese-heavy cuisine originated to fuel tough, physically-active mountain people. It is not, admittedly, a good match with a lethargic holiday. So even if I didn't need to see the sights, basic prudence demanded I get up from the garden furniture occasionally.
Our most physically rigorous excursion was a climb up up La Montagne du Taillefer. For the outdoorsy types and adrenaline junkies who holiday in this valley, Taillefer is hardly worth notice. The sign for the first part of the route says the walk from the car park in Duingt to the summit takes 25 minutes. I took more than double that, and was labouring near the top, but I'm proof that it is a route that can be conquered and enjoyed by the less active. You just need to take your time and be very careful on large parts of the route where ridges of bare stone erupt from the path. My hiking pole was essential for balance.
We started with the more direct ascent, closer to the lake, where a paved path rises in switchback curves dotted with shrines illustrating the Way of the Cross. (You're in a Catholic country, after all.) This bit ends at a bench about half way up the mountain overlooked by a large statue of St. Michael triumphing over a devil. Less ambitious hikers should admire the view and go no further.
There's no paved path after this and there are bits where scrambling over rocks can be a bit precarious, but it's all perfectly manageable if you take your time. There are rest points on the way up to admire the steadily improving view. Finally, you come out onto a small Alpine meadow with an astonishing vista of all of Lake Annecy and the mountains around it. The lake narrows to a pinch point at Duingt, with Taillefer forming a land barrier between two almost-separate valleys. Lake Annecy is ringed with higher viewpoints than this 765-meter summit (345 meters, or the equivalent of an 80-story building, from where you started), but none of the higher peaks puts you in the exact centre of the picture. You can return the way you came, or do a longer circle route. We followed the spine of the mountain away from the lake catching glimpses of villages, Alpine valleys and grazing cows below. The descent is heavily forested; the last half mile through a steep, quiet wood full of lofty pines is magical.
There's climbing to be had at the Chateau de Menthon as well, though it's medieval steps rather than mountain spines that will be taxing your energy. Having written about the ancestral home of St. Bernard here before, I won't go into detail beyond saying it was well worth a return visit. Even if the tours are only in French. This is one of a handful of buildings that claim to be the inspiration for Disney's iconic castle, and its exquisite cluster of towers makes that credible. Inside you'll find a warren of rooms both charming and fascinating, as only a home occupied by the same family for more than 1,000 years can be.
Another day we opted for more sophisticated pleasures in Megève. This legendary ski resort is about a 40-minute drive from St. Jorioz. In a few months it will be heaving with the rich and famous but at the moment, caught between school holidays and winter, it's almost empty and most of its luxury goods shops were closed. Though window displays were already well stocked with obscenely expensive apres ski clothes. Without shop attendants, we were spared the temptation of spending more than €1000 on cashmere pajamas or fine knit loden-style cardigans. Most of the people working here at the moment are in the construction trade, breaking the almost-eerie silence in the streets with the din of power tools as every landlord packed necessary renovations into the off season.
I suspect I enjoyed the town more as an empty stage set than I would once populated. The architecture is lovely (yet another village in the Disney Fantasy Land template), the window boxes and planters cascading with late summer abundance, streams gurgling through town beneath quaint bridges, green mountain slopes rising behind every view. We ate lunch at Le Prieure on the main square, where we enjoyed the marvellous views and the upscale ski lodge interior but had one of the worst meals of our trip. Dry, crunchy and almost flavourless risotto was only saved by a decadent chocolate cake. I wasn't expecting value for money in such a place, so wasn't disappointed.
The best part of this day was actually the drive between Lake Annecy and Megève. The route goes through a narrow mountain pass with a few miles of it winding crazily at the bottom of steep canyons of stone. A small river gushes below you, first on one side and then on the other as the road keeps crossing the water in tight bends. It's not for the faint-hearted driver, but will amply reward anyone who enjoys a challenge behind the wheel.
Aix-les-Bains is a much easier drive (mostly motorway) in the other direction. Its legendary hot thermal baths would have slotted nicely into our general theme of indolence, But this holiday ... like all we take to France ... had another theme. We were in Aix for wine.
BOUTIQUE BOTTLES
Domaine Xavier Jacqueline is the kind of tiny, family-run winery you're unlikely to find without local knowledge. They do little marketing, produce small quantities, keep all but the picking between Xavier and his two daughters, and their winery is in an unremarkable bit of suburban Aix far from their fields on hills above Lake Bourget. It's become one of our host's favourites in the region, and he now has the kind of relationship with the Jacquelines that meant the family slotted us in for a tasting despite being deep in the harvest.
Having run through their whole range on a visit last May, this meant we had the delight of comparing 2017s to the 2016s we'd already samples. Their limited run of Pinot Noir was sold out but we tasted the local red Mondeuse, though earlier purchases left no room for acquiring reds. We were here for their sparkling wine, made from a mixture of their white varieties: Chardonnay, Roussette and Malvoisie. We also picked up a case of their premium Chardonnay, part-aged in steel before being finished for a year in wood. It's all the more special because it's called Le Jardin du Mathilde, hand-crafted by his eldest daughter (and the lady who's taken us through both of our tastings) from the plot papa gave her to play with when she first expressed interest in joining him. Both wines and daughter have matured delightfully. We paid inside the production facility, where the whole family was processing the harvest of the previous day. I've spoken to plenty of wine makers before, but it's the first time I've ever been offered a glass of freshly-pressed juice right out of the fermenting vat. Heaven.
As the week ended we celebrated the intersection of our holiday, my birthday and the wedding anniversary of both us and our friends with a gourmet meal in Annecy's old town. As I've written in previous French reports, the award of one Michelin "plate" in France tends to give you a restaurant that would hold a full star in most other countries. So it was with La Ciboulette.
CASUAL FINE DINING
This elegantly-decorated L-shaped restaurant wraps around a stone-flagged patio in the historic district. It was a warm evening, more late summer than early autumn, so their sliding glass walls were open and the place felt almost tropical. Stiff while linens, silver figurines on the table and original art on the walls reminded me a bit of London's Le Gavroche, but the vibe was decidedly more relaxed. Perhaps a bit too laid back, in fact. Having dressed for a big night out, we were all a bit surprised by the jeans, tee-shirts, shorts and flip-flops of some of our fellow diners. At least, I thought, we weren't suffering from the overly-reverential atmosphere that killed the mood for me at America's French Laundry.No French Laundry-style extortionate pricing here, either. The €65 chef's menu was excellent value: four courses plus amuse bouche, appetiser and petit fours. The first course was either a rather unusual crayfish carpaccio or an earthy pot of new season ceps. Both were delicious. Most of the table opted for veal as a main, with one choosing and acclaiming the turbot. Next, as you would expect in this region, an astonishing and extremely local cheeseboard. I was delighted to be able to assemble a plate of five distinctly-flavoured goats' cheeses ranging from mild to off-the-charts. I like strong cheeses, but one rolled and aged in bitter genepi was a bridge too far for me. The excessive bitterness of that mouthful was soon a memory thanks to a slice of decadent chocolate tart accompanied by tropical fruits and ice cream. Both boys had opted for a far more sophisticated-looking raspberry and meringue number, the light sharpness of which was probably a better profile to follow cheese, but when have I ever passed up chocolate?
Fortunately for both the budget and the waistline, this big splurge was one of our few nights out in Annecy. Fitting in with the laid-back indolence of the holiday, we cooked a lot of lazy, simple meals at home, though we still took advantage of local ingredients. And lots of the little-known wines of the Haut-Savoie, consumed without restraint as nobody needed to drive home. Laziness has its rewards.
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