Another Adventure In Annecy

2019

You’ve fallen into a fairytale, but thankfully you learned to pick yourself up and now you’re rewarded by the beautiful town before your eyes. That’s exactly how I felt after I stepped off the bus in Annecy, France and began strolling down the cobblestone streets with a chocolate croissant in each hand. If you want a fairytale town, look no further. I decided to visit this town despite originally planning to visit Gruyères, the town of famed cheese and chocolates. However, heavy rain in the region impeded my desire to do so. Thankfully, the weather to the west of Geneva was favorable, so I booked a bus for early the next morning and looked forward to seeing Annecy in person.

I remember this moment when I was navigating through a small plaza looking for an opening or narrow street that would look out onto the bridge over turquoise waters with colorful buildings on each side, and when I finally turned a corner and found it, I think I shed a tear. Just one though. As I kept moving along and found the serene Lac d’Annecy (Lake Annecy), I knew I stumbled upon a tiny slice of heaven. Originally I thought about retiring in Bath, England or Florence, Italy but this town likely just topped the list. I could already see myself biking by the lake or going sailing on a sunny day. However, since I had no plans to retire anytime soon, I decided it was time for an adventure while my knees were still strong.

Since I only had about half a day in this town, I spent most of it running around trying to find the best spots to take photos. One thing I had in mind was to capture a view of the town from above, and so I looked to the mountains since I had forgotten my drone. The only ride sharing service I could easily find was Uber and so I quickly booked a ride and set the destination as a random pin I dropped in the mountains. Having done no research whatsoever about the trails or viewpoints in the area, I decided to just pick the highest point it seemed like a car could go. A little over half an hour later, my driver was halted by a gate just a little away from my destination, so I decided to simply proceed on foot with my trustworthy friend Google Maps.

Now as much as I love Google Maps, it’s not perfect, especially when it comes to trails in mountains. As I kept trekking up the dirt path to where I thought a trail would be, I came upon a taped off area that seemed to be closed off for logging and construction purposes. Thinking I was wrong, I peered ahead on the trail to see if there was another route, but as soon as I turned back around this Frenchman leaped out of the tree line and sprinted past me back down the trail from whence I came. Seeing as anyone could take the trail despite it being cordoned off, I decided to go in myself, only to be tricked and find out that the path up was just a long trail of misshapen rocks and loose dirt. However, with only a few hours to go I chose to deal with this instead of trying to find another trail.

After what felt like a millennia crawling up the rocky slope, the trail I was following ended and I was surrounded by trees. I suppose this is where the next trees would sadly be felled. I decided to continue walking forward through the trees because I deduced that if I kept going uphill I would, obviously, reach the top sooner or later. Much to my dismay, I noticed after a few minutes that there was a trail not too far to my right, as made evident by the fact that a couple was watching me move as if I was some deranged tourist who had lost his tour group. I stopped moving to pretend as if I was resting, hoping they would quickly move on so I could escape their piercing looks of judgment.

When I finally reached the top I was out of breath, not because I was struggling, but because the view was breathtaking. I immediately set up my tripod and camera and tried to find a vantage point, but there were still many trees in the way, so I decided to take another risk. I carefully stepped onto a large rock that was on the very edge of the mountain and away from the trees in order to get a clear shot. After squatting uncomfortably for quite a while, I made my way back up, but as I stepped off the rock shifted down. I dropped my camera and tripod down and pressed my forearm onto the rock in front of me trying to stabilize myself and get back to safety. Thankfully, my camera was fine and I was able to make it back to the trail relatively unharmed.

After toying with danger, I decided to take the path that everyone seemed to be using except me and head back down the mountain. Further down the trail I came upon an unnecessary fork in the road, and this is where I decided to pull a Robert Frost despite the ticking clock. Turns out my luck could not be better because after I had gone along for about 20 minutes the trail simply vanished. Feeling the pressure of missing my return voyage back to Geneva, I decided, logically, to simply slide down through the leaves, branches, and dirt in order to reach the closest trail I saw further down. This endeavor took a few minutes and honestly, I consider myself lucky to not have been impaled by a rogue branch during my descent in navy chinos and Chacos.

I think after this trip I should add trespassing to my list of hobbies because this is the second time I’ve done so. Having initiated my panic sequence I proceeded to run down the rest of the trail only to find myself in someone’s backyard. A nearby ditch that was likely made for rainwater, or perhaps other fluids, provided me with passage underneath their chain fence and led me to a low stone wall which I crawled over to reach the nearest street. With less than half an hour to go to catch my bus, I called another Uber ride to take me back to the train station. My heart sank when I saw that it would take about 40 minutes to reach the station since I had gone so far I ended up in another town. In addition, my driver this second time was coincidentally the same person from the first time. I bet he found my condition after the adventure compared to before rather comedic.

As soon as the car stopped I hauled my dirty self straight to the train station only to find out the bus was delayed. In fact, it was delayed several hours. I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, but let’s just say for the sake of imagery that the name of this company was FlixBus. Anyways, it’s all water under the bridge now. Despite my troubles, I truly had an amazing time in this town. As always, my photographs and stories can’t paint you the full picture of how gorgeous this place is, but that’s the idea. I try to provide a glimpse to help stir the imagination, and one day I hope you can seek the experience for yourself. The world is full of colorful places, especially Europe, the continent of storybook towns. Don’t let the fear of being uncomfortable stop you from going on an adventure because there’s a whole world out there - let’s go and see it.