Loving the mountain scenery

Thursday 19^th June

We woke this morning to mist and low cloud with some blue sky peeping through. It was cool but not cold. Another beautiful drive through the mountains – the scenery truly is spectacular and photos just don’t do it justice. The roads today have been really good (obviously we are in France, not Italy) and the traffic was fairly quiet.

 

This was the guard dog at our hotel last night.
A Pyrennean Mountain dog.

A beautiful chateau we passed on the drive this morning.

Just some of the scenery - it changed around every bend.

Our first stop for the day was Grenoble where we had lunch. Until this trip we both thought that Grenoble was in Switzerland. Not so, it is in France. It seemed to be quite a new city and as cities go was very quiet and did not have any of the frenzy surrounding some cities, especially Italian cities. How many cities can you drive in to the centre and get a parking meter one block from the centre? We were able to just park and have a wander around.

A few shots of Grenoble.

From Grenoble we headed on to Albertville where the winter Olympic games were once held. We weren’t too sure of the year but found it was 1992. The Olympic stadium is still there but is now a derelict building – the sign said they had plans to rejuvenate it for 2015 though there was no sign of that yet. We were standing at the site of the opening ceremony – the tower was still standing but the stadium is now parkland. The mountains surrounding Albertville were very impressive – there was a little snow remaining on some of the higher peaks and in the sheltered areas. I can only imagine what it would be like in winter – pretty stunning!

 

Another chateau on the drive to Albertville.

The Olympic stadium at Albertville.

A picture of the opening ceremony at Albertville in 1992.

The tower is still standing
but no signs of the stadium surrounding it.

Finally we travelled to Annecy which is our overnight stop. Again a magical drive along a valley between the mountains and finally along the shores of Lac D’Annecy which is that beautiful blue/green colour. As we drove from Albertville to Annecy a lot of the houses seemed to have a swiss flavour to them - all we needed was cowbells and we could have been back in Switzerland. The day has turned out to be quite warm and there were a lot of people enjoying the lake in Annecy – swimming, sunbathing, boating, walking and just generally relaxing. There were a few majestic white swans cruising the canal near the lake and turning bottoms up to feed from the bottom. A very pretty place to visit.

A chateau on Lac D'Annecy.

Strret shot in Annecy - not sure that the mountains
 have come out real well in the photo.

Dog of the day - out for a walk in my handbag.

Beautiful scenery surrounding Annecy.

Looking across the lake at Annecy.

A lovely building on the lakeshore.