• Troyes to Annecy
• August 2022

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From Troyes our next stop was Annecy.  We visited here back in 2017 only spending a very short period of time in town.  Today we were heading back to fully explore this alpine town as my memories of it were really positive.

Annecy is just picture perfect.  It is an ideal base for anybody, any age, with any interest, that’s my opinion anyway.  It has shops, a market, restuarants, mountains, a lake, canals and most importantly ice cream in almost any flavour imaginable (biscoff was my favourite choice)!

We managed to find a perfect parking spot up near the Visitation Basilica which gave us grand views of the town below.

Straight away we headed out and downwards wandering through the old town, the buildings here are very beautiful, we went up to and around the outdoor market which sold most things however it was very busy so we didn’t stay too long. We then headed around the bridges over the canals, you can easily see why Annecy is sometimes known as the Venice of the Alps.

Next day we wandered through the old town again, then went down by Lake Annacy.  The water here, surrounded by the mountains looked tempting so of course we had a quick dip to cool off, and freshen up before walking around a section of the Lake. 

During our dip there was one mountain in particular that we were struck by and also whilst walking around Annacy it has been there in full view most of the time, its such a stunning mountain. 

So next day curiosity got the better of us and we decided to hike it – La Tournette  – the highest of the mountains surrounding Lake Annecy and it is a beauty sitting at 2,351m!

To be honest, all the mountains around Annecy, are stunning but this one in particular when on the summit gave us 360º panoramic views of the French Alps and Lake Annecy, it had the perfect view.

To begin with the walk was busy, something I am never that comfortable with, and something which takes me a bit of getting used to if being honest. I’m more comfortable getting lost in the Scottish mountains and seeing more than 10 people on route I’d class as busy, so today was going to be a different hike. Once our pace was set however we began to have our own little hiking spot in the mountains where we could escape and walk our own walk. It was a very pleasant hike in very pleasant temperatures, I could get used to this.

Straight away it was a steep up, but it was warm, and our surroundings were stunning there was no complaining.

The final part of this hike, was over polished slippery rocks and near the top we were provided with bars, chains and ladders to reach the summit, this always makes us smile as in Scotland no such things are provided and sometimes your simply hanging from the rocks with only air below you to reach some summits, so this was something different.

Other major differences to our munro baggings were no wind, no rain, no fog, no waterproofs, and no boots for the bog…however it did make us appreciate the solitude of our Scottish mountains. 

We decided on reaching the summit to head down a different route as it was meant to be quieter, this was slightly longer, but meant we could take in a circular, which we much prefer anyway and the beauty of this was we never saw a soul until we were back at the van but we did see an Alpine Ibex, which was a result in itself.

This had been an amazing day on the mountains in Annecy and completed our stay here perfectly.

Check our small video above of our hike on La Tournette 👌❤😍.