James Rowe: If you're after storybook castles, secret pontoons, and a slower pace on your next trip abroad, consider the shores of Lake Annecy.
Hello, I'm James Rowe and welcome to Which? Shorts, your free weekly insight into Which? magazine, as well as our money, tech, travel, and gardening titles too. Today, I'm bringing you a piece that our travel expert, Guy Hobbs, wrote for the July/August issue of Which? Travel, all about his trip to the French alpine destination of Lake Annecy. He takes us on a tour around the lake, documenting the stunning views and superior cuisine he sampled, while revealing the best method for exploring the shores of one of the cleanest lakes in Europe. Here is Guy's piece, adapted for the podcast, this week read by Guy himself.
Guy Hobbs: The French have never held much truck with street food. Meal times are a slow, sacred ritual, to be savoured over several courses, and eating on the go is considered a little vulgair. But in the medieval alpine city of Annecy, there's one crucial exception, and I've been thinking of little else since I landed. It's the messy, portable, and deeply satisfying raclette sandwich.
Pushing my way through the Saint-Claire market, with its rows of ripe strawberries and bowls of glistening olives, I join the hordes at hole-in-the-wall Les Caprices d’Emilie under the heavy stone arches of the handsome Vieille Ville – or Old Town. Breathing in the nutty aroma of cheese bubbling under a heat lamp, I watch with anticipation as it's artfully scraped into a row of expectant baguettes. It's high summer, and I have to pick my way through tourist hordes alongside the preposterously pretty, flower-lined canals, and fight my way onto a bench to enjoy my picnic with a view.
Stretching before me is Lake Annecy, a spectacle of translucent turquoise, surrounded by soaring, saw-tooth peaks and sun-drenched slopes of pine forest. Crunching on cornichons and the still gooey raclette, I watch a pedalo with stripey deckchair seats slowly squeak past an island on the lake and disappear into the blue. There's a reason, I muse, that Annecy is so persistently popular.
For popular, you can also read busy. You'll struggle in summer to get a crowd-free photo of the iconic Palais de l'Île, a 12th-century residence resembling a stone galley anchored in the emerald green River Thiou. And the queues for a roasted almond ice cream at Glacier des Alpes, which serves some of the best ice cream in France, are so long that you might as well buy two. After a day or so soaking up the atmosphere, I'm ready to search for the lake's more serene sites, to escape the throng and find a shady spot for a swim.
Fortunately, France's third-largest lake is extremely navigable. Summer shuttle buses allow you to beach-hop for free in peak season, while water taxis and cheaper ferries whizz you from shore to shore. But to travel at your own pace, it's best to take to two wheels. I rent a bike in the centre of Annecy and leap straight into the Voie Verte cycle route, one of the country's oldest greenways, which loops the entire lake. On the west side, the car-free path follows an abandoned 1930s train line and is almost completely flat – perfect for gentle idling and lakeside picnics. But today, I am tackling the east bank towards Talloires, slightly more challenging, but with increasingly dramatic views.
They say it's possible to ride the 25-mile circuit in three to four hours, although why you would want to is beyond me. I find myself stopping every five minutes to admire something new. I pass buttercup meadows complete with clanging cows straight from an alpine ad. I follow peaceful promenades of fishermen's pontoons and pollarded plane trees, their gnarled limbs reflected in the water. I even see a mountain goat sunning itself atop a picnic bench. And to my right, the sparkling lake is my constant companion.
Then, high above me, an unexpected sight looms from the forest. The multi-turreted Château de Menthon clings to the mountainside with such storybook splendour that it's easy to believe the legend that it inspired Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle. Making the steep climb on foot, I soon learn that the castle's history has been so heavily embellished over the years that it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction. What's certainly true is that the château has been in the hands of the same family for more than a millennium. The Count and Countess de Menthon still live in a private wing, and it's a joy to explore their private chapel and poke around a personal library of more than 12,000 creaking, leather-bound tomes. But whether their ancestor, the alpine monk Saint Bernard – yes, he of shaggy dog fame – was the original owner is less clear-cut. Nevertheless, if you can suspend your disbelief long enough, you can visit the window from which he apparently leapt before being delivered safely to the ground by angels and fleeing into the Alps, where he became the patron saint of mountaineers. I'm not prepared to try the same trick, so instead, I pick my way carefully down the hillside before clinging to my bike for the jaw-dropping descent into the bay of Talloires.
In my search for summer solitude on Annecy, I'm staying at the Abbaye de Talloires, a former medieval monastery in a crescent bay, sheltered on one side by vertical limestone cliffs and famed for the soft light and scenery that inspired Paul Cézanne's Le Lac Bleu. On paper, it's a sleepy sanctuary of dappled sunshine and Benedictine silence. But when I arrive, it's frankly buzzing. Waiters scurry between tables, their trays creaking with Savoyard cocktails, while guests lounge and splash by the water's edge. Lakeside resorts, it turns out, don't come much more glamorous than Talloires. In part, it's down to the array of swanky restaurants lining the lakefront, with none so celebrated as the century-old Auberge du Père Bise, a former hangout of Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, and Jean-Paul Sartre, to name but a few.
You'll need to book at least a month in advance to secure a coveted two-Michelin-star eight-course menu from star chef Jean Sulpice. And it will set you back more than 300 euros. But here's a tip: sister bistro, the 1903, shares a head chef and the same breathtaking bay views as the main restaurant, but at a third of the price. And crucially for my cycle-friendly luggage limitation, you can turn up for lunch in trainers. So, that's exactly what I do the next day.
I'm seated by the vast window with wooden rowing boats bobbing at arm's reach and surrounded by the laughter of French family gatherings. Despite its grand heritage, there's nothing stuffy about the 1903. Nevertheless, the food here is serious business. My starter is an artwork: paper-thin, interlaced discs of deep red beetroot and milk-white Beaufort cheese, like fireworks exploding on the plate. But the real joy is the fish: fresh, flaky féra and Arctic char, caught by Florent Capretti, one of Lake Annecy's last two remaining professional fishermen.
"Why are there so few?" I ask my waiter. Apparently, it's because of the purity of the water here. Low levels of algae make for great swimming, but also mean that the ecosystem can't support fish in huge numbers. And so, the local government caps its fishing licences. This scarcity, of course, has only fuelled demand and made legends of the local fishermen who creep out in the dead of night to bring back their coveted catch. And when my féra arrives – light and delicate, but with a crisp, golden skin and topped with a tangy clementine coulis – I silently thank them for their service. I'm already mentally ranking this meal among my top 10 when something spectacular happens. In the mountains above Talloires, the Col de la Forclaz is the lake's mecca for paragliders, and a change in wind direction has brought dozens of the daredevils floating like confetti into view. I pop a last petit four of saffron meringue into my mouth and watch in wonder at the kaleidoscope of colourful silk canopies dancing and pirouetting in slow motion above the bay.
While lunch leaves me snoozing and satisfied, I realise that I am no closer to my goal of finding my own private corner of the lake. And while I've dipped my toes into the clear waters, I have yet to dive in. Hopping back onto my bike, I set off round the lake's southern tip at Bout-du-Lac and search for a swimming spot. There are more than a dozen beaches on the shores of Annecy. Some are family-friendly with diving towers and lifeguard patrols, while others are more stylish with bustling beach bars. All are wildly popular, not least because the lake, fed by alpine springs, reaches a delicious 25 degrees Celsius in summer. Locals, I'm told, favour public access points: wooden jetties protruding from the grassy verge. And as the afternoon heat rises, I'm on the lookout for any pontoon that isn't roped off with a "propriété privée" sign. But not only is the west bank's greenway taking me further inland, it's also becoming increasingly busy. I can now barely see the water for runners, roller skaters, and an enormous golden retriever that's just overtaken me in a cargo bike.
Feeling defeated, and by now sweaty and exhausted, I spot a route into the woods and decide to seek shade and regroup. But to my surprise, the path takes me back down to the water's edge. I find myself on the Promenade des Roselières, home to kingfishers, grebes, and a weathered wooden walkway that cuts through a dense wall of whispering reeds and out onto a secret pontoon. Under the shade of a weeping willow, and with the jetty entirely to myself, I slip into water so still that it reflects every tooth of the La Tournette peak opposite, and so clear that I can count every stone beneath my toes. I spend the late afternoon happily soaking up the silence, with no sense of time, until the sky blushes deep red and a sudden pang of hunger brings me back to earth.
After my spectacular lunch, I couldn't eat another meal. But then again, I think, it's not far back to Annecy, maybe a 20-minute ride? If I pedal hard, I'm fairly sure I could make room for one last raclette sandwich.
James Rowe: That brings to an end another podcast from Which? There's loads more for you to read about everything we discussed today. Just head to the episode description for more useful, everyday advice. There you'll also find an exclusive offer for podcast listeners like you to become a Which? member for 50% off the usual price, giving you access to our product reviews, our app, one-to-one personalised buying advice, and every issue of Which? magazine across the year. Plus, your membership helps us to make life simpler, fairer, and safer for everyone. If you'd like to know when we release a new episode, then make sure you press subscribe wherever you're listening. That way, you can be one of the first to listen. And for any questions, comments, or anything in between, follow us on social media @WhichUK or email us podcasts@which.co.uk. Goodbye.
