My brother and his wife are going to one of our favorite places in October – the beautiful villages of Talloires and Annecy in eastern France, south of Geneva. We haven’t been there since 1989 but glad to see that the hotel we stayed in Talloires is still there – Hotel Beau Site (and it is indeed a beautiful sight/site.) http://www.beausite-talloires.com/index-en.php.
As I recall the hotel is near the French campus of – surprisingly – Tufts University. Now there’s a junior year abroad I’d enjoy.
Good reading while you’re there: Hotel du Lac a Booker Prize winning novel (1984) by Anita Brookner – set in Geneva. I think I was reading it at the time.
From my diary: “Talloires is a lovely town – the prettiest on Lac d’Annecy as far as I can tell. There is no or very little modern development. The small village is one curving street with old stone houses and a few cafes and shops. There’s a small waterfront down the hill, bordered by three or four hotels and five or six stone private homes. Our hotel has a big landscaped garden that leads to a long green lawn that stretches to the water. The lake looks a darker blue than we’ve seen earlier and the mountains are smaller but in some ways more dramatic because they begin as rolling green meadows and forest then end at the top with a jagged sheer rock face jutting out like some dramatic monument set against the sky.”
“We spent the morning walking around the fruit and veg market held each Tuesday in the old city of Annecy. It was lovely- beautiful narrow streets crowded with stalls filled with red tomatoes, peaches, olives, cheese; two canals lined with flower boxes. We ate lunch at an outdoor cafe alongside one of the canals. Then drove to see Gorge du Fier, a dramatic gorge, (http://www.gorgesdufier.com/en/faq.html) and a nearby chateau. Pretty drive.”
