weekend in the alps

so this weekend we went to a town annecy at the foot of the alps in haute-savoie. we took the train for three and a half hours out of the gare de lyon and visited the site of anne-gaelle's senior thesis. the place is actually the capital of the region but has managed to retain its medeival town center complete with canals and arcaded streets, an island with a castle on it and a chateau perched on the bluff above it. it sits at one end of the crystal clear lake annecy (you can see for 50 m!! 180 ft!) and is surrounded by towering mountains (or really big hills) covered in forests.

we had our first hostel experience here!! pretty great, for 15 euros you get a room with your friends, a shower in the room, clean sheets, a warm bed and free breakfast!! definitely my new favorite way to stay.

anyways, after the first day of exploring the medieval town and all its old churhces and shops, and maybe having a sandwich grec, we slept soundly and got up with the sun to set off into the forest for a "not too long hike." we were out there half the time lost on trails we only hoped went in the right direction following little spraypainted arrows of yellow and red and orange. it was a little creepy because every once in a while a hunter with a rifle slung over his shoulder would tramp out of the forest then twenty minutes later you would hear a shot. it was great to be out there though in the autumn forest and the brisk fall air. the views from the top were beautiful looking down at the lake and at the end of the trail we came out into someone's yard that looked like it was straight from a fairytale with a water trough spouting water out of gargoyles and horses and a friendly lady congratulating us on hour five hour trek.

we picked up a lunch of dry salami with some local cheese on a baguette from a lady who visited california last year and then we went back to anne-gaelle's site to see if we could get some more pictures. pretty useless though since all of our cameras ran out of batteries one after another and we ended up having to use the rest of the film from the 35mm... so when we returned back to annecy that day we didnt really getto take any more. oh well, too many pictures gets a little annoying.

oh, we also had a hitch hiking experience. waiting for the bus we decided to try and hitch a ride rather than pay two euro fifty and so this old french hunter guy picks us up and the whole time he is going on and on about how the french just need to kick out all the blacks and muslims and any other immigrant who isn't french. he was saying how at least in the us you can have guns and speak your mind and in france you can't even call someone disabled. pretty crazy guy, oh well, it takes all kinds i guess. the main canal of annecy
the main street of annecy