Annecy - Talloires

A lovely sunny morning, and off we went to the boulangerie for brekky.  I had a croissant; Phil tried a Croix au Creme (basically a croissant with custard).  We grabbed a couple of other things for later, and went looking for bike hire and a supermarket.  We found a small grocery store next to the bike hire, so Phil bought a bottle of Fanta, and I hung around until the bike place opened.  We then bought tickets for the 10.30 cruise around Lac d'Annecy, and people and bicycle boarded the boat.  The whole cruise was 2 hours long, but you could get off at any stop and reboard the next cruise (bearing in mind there were only 3 cruises!)

We got off at Talloires (pronounced Tell-waaah), a little village on the opposite shore to Annecy.  There were supposedly some nice walks from this village, but we couldn't see any signs or tourist info, so we just walked (at least, Phil walked - I had the bike!)  We ended up going uphill and found the place where the paragliders land.

We went up a bit higher still, but the views weren't getting better, so we stopped to eat...

...then headed down again.

We split up so Phil could get all the steps he wanted, and I headed around the bay.  This photo is looking at Talloires...

..and this photo is looking back across the lake.

We both ended up back at the dock, watching all the paragliders.  There were around 30, many of whom just hung around for over an hour.  They must have had perfect conditions.

Back on the boat at 1500 for the rest of the cruise,

and we arrived back in Annecy at 1615.  Annecy's chateau is on the far right.  The weather had become increasingly cold over the last hour, and the cloud cover was by now complete.

  I went for a ride around the lake; Phil went for a walk.  I found birds; he found a church.

The difference in ice-cream is very noticeable between Italy and France.  Gelato in Italy is cheap (1 euro for one scoop, sometimes), plentiful (they use a large spatula and slather it on the cone) and absolutely delicious.  Glace in France is expensive (2 euros for a scoop is the cheapest we found), niggardly (very small scoops) and is not the same quality as the Italian stuff.  Disappointing.