Annecy/Strasbourg

Postcard Annecy

We had a couple extra days in our itinerary in case we needed them somewhere, and we have used them up yet, so we decided to spend a day in Annecy, a small french town on the Swiss border. 

Flowers and bikes. Cute!

Annecy is a really adorable place! Its nestled in the French Alps, is situated on a very large lake, and has the cutest old town with canals. Its the not-as-touristy French version of Venice I would say. It was really small and quiet. There were some tourists, but I felt like most of them were French, so I think its mostly off the American tourism map.

View of the castle complex from one of the castle windows

It was pretty cold during our one day to explore Annecy, so we put on our sweaters and set out to see old town. Its so adorable! There were tons of cute little stores and restaurants. We aren't going to Switzerland at all on this trip, so we figured Annecy was the closest we'd get (it actually was part of Switzerland for a long time a while back), so we had an authentic Swiss cheese fondue for lunch, which was so amazing! I'm not a huge cheese fan, but that meal was very delicious.

Fondue! 

There's a really old jail in old town that is the most photographed building in Annecy. Its really photogenic and we took some photos, and then went inside where they have an architecture exhibit about the jail as well the history of the building. It was very interesting.

Then we went to a little castle on the hill and peeked around. It was probably the most random museum ever. It had a bit of history of the castle, but there were random abstract art exhibits everywhere as well as lots of history of this St Anthony guy. In another building they had an aquarium and some information about fishing with nets, and on the next floor they had a bunch of bird skeletons and taxidermy. By this time we were pretty much done, so we headed back to our hostel to have dinner, pack, and do some interneting.

Annecy is a great place to relax and hang out. They have a really nice park by the lake, and I bet its excellent when its warm. It was really nice to have a chill day without any plans after the whirlwind that was Paris and Barcelona. 

Random blue hallway

So after Annecy, we headed over to Strasbourg, a small city on the German border in France. Unlike Annecy, Strasbourg is really touristy, and we couldn't figure out why! The old town was about the same size as Annecy's, maybe a bit larger, and it has the old timber frame construction in like half of the old town. All of the Strasbourg pictures you always see come from one street in old town, so after you see that, you've seen Strasbourg.

Annecy skyline and Alps

We walked around old town for a couple hours, but everything was really expensive and there wasn't really anything to do except shopping and eating nice dinners. Shopping would have been fun if we didn't already have overly stuffed backpacks. After about two hours we decided there was no way we could spend 3 days here, so we hit up a cafe and started figuring out where we could escape to the next morning, since our hostel/hotel did not even have wifi.

Postcard Strasbourg

I didn't hate Strasbourg, but I think its somewhere to visit when you're looking for a relaxing time with fancy dinners and shopping, not when you're looking for an adventure. We had enough relaxation in Annecy to do us for a while. Hopefully Brussels, our Strasbourg replacement, will be a bit more exciting! At least there will be chocolate and Belgian waffles, which I'm really pumped for.
PS We're really done with French people. Sarah says they have the personality of a Siamese cat, and that is exactly right!