Adam and Cat's Blog: France and Switzerland

Friday, 11 April 2008 - Monday, 14 April 2008

We celebrated Cat's birthday with a visit to Annecy and Geneva.

We flew to Geneva on Friday morning, collected a hire car, and headed straight for Annecy, about half an hour over the French border.

As it was Cat's birthday, we decided to splash out and stay at the beautiful L'Imperial Palace (http://www.hotel-imperial-palace.com/), which is situated right on Lake Annecy. We had a great room, with incredible views accross the lake to the Alps.

Unfortunately, the heavens decided to open just as we arrived in Annecy and it poured all afternoon. We tried to head into the town, but the rain was just too heavy, so we opted to make the most of the hotel and the weather and had an afternoon nap. The rain eased that evening, so we went into the town, which really is almost too good to be true. Medieval houses and arched alleyways crisscrossed by rushing canals. We had a great dinner at a cosy little restaurant, with some really tasty Savoyard dishes. After a bottle of some local wine, Cat got a bit over-confident in her French-speaking abilities and proudly announced to the waiter that it was her birthday (in fairness, she had meant to point this out as justification for her having dessert, but she couldn't finish off that part of the sentence, so it just came out as "today is my birthday"). The waiting staff at the restaurant duly took this as their cue to deliver her dessert with a birthday candle and a rendition of Happy Birthday in French. Cat went as red as the wine.

We spent Saturday meandering through Annecy's beautiful streets, punctuated with stops at a patisserie for breakfast and a creperie for lunch. Words won't do the place justice - hopefully the photos below do. It is definitely one of our favourite places that we have visited since leaving Australia. The sun came out in the afternoon, so we went for a long walk along the edge of Lake Annecy, before again heading into town for another good dinner.

Sunday was a day of perfect sunshine. We checked out of our hotel early and spent the morning driving through the Alps to Chamonix, a truly stunning drive. In Chamonix, we caught Europe's longest cable car, the Aiguille du Midi cable car. It climbs from the valley floor to a terrace just beneath the Aiguille at 3777m, and all in less than 20 minutes. While I enjoyed the ride - and the incredible 360 degree views from the top - it is safe to say that Cat did not. Not at all. The photos below tell the tale, and suffice to say we won't be heading up any great heights in the foreseeable future. After returning to Chamonix, where we had some lunch, we headed back to Geneva. We dropped off our hire car at the airport, caught the train into the city, and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Auteil (http://www.manotel.com/auteuil/), which was nice, and really conveniently located. We immediately headed down to Lake Geneva, which looked a treat in the afternoon sunshine, and we spent the afternoon and evening exploring the Old Town.

We spent Monday exploring more of Geneva - the international organisations in the morning, and then the extremely attractive suburb of Carrouge in the afternoon. It was then to the airport and home.

A wonderful 4 days away, and a birthday that I'm sure Cat will always remember.

The views from our hotel room in Annecy