There are two things to like about Annecy; one is the annual Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival — an invitational biathlon and cross country skiing competition, always attracting the world’s top athletes in both disciplines — and the lake, especially the running/bicycle trail by the trail. Annecy is a beautiful town, alright, but it is impossible to enjoy due to the crowds. Also because of them, and particularly the type of tourists the town attracts, it is also extremely filthy.

Below on the screen biathlon men’s medal ceremony and champagne shower: the Norwegian winner, as well the German winner in the ladies’ race, had difficulties in opening their bottle, so the French runner-ups had to rush to help.

This time we stayed exceptionally at a hotel instead of an Airbnb apartment — because we only stayed one night we wanted to minimize the hassle of shopping and cooking. However, this also meant that we had to find a restaurant for dinner. We did a little research to find a place that we would be happy about and chose an African restaurant. The food was OK, although the presentation somewhat messy, but the waiting time was too long; it took almost an hour before the starter was served. Then again, there was only one server, and the small kitchen may also have been a bottleneck. We chose a shrimp skewer for the starter and we both had fish for the main. We should have ordered their chili sauce as well.

We started our Sunday with a traditional run by the lake. It was still cool at 7:30am, and not much hotter when we were back. The old town, where our hotel was located, was also enjoyably quiet at that hour. Our post-run drink was freshly-squeezed orange juice from a market vendor.

We had two things planned for the rest of the Sunday: not any tedious hiking but a walk in the canyon of the river Fier (Les Gorges du Fier) in Lovagny, and a visit to the secret gardens of Vaulx. We started with the canyon since it opened earlier. We have seen bit and pieces of it from the train to Annecy, but only recently learned that it could be visited.

The canyon was indeed spectacular, although too crowded to be fully appreciated. The start of the walk was a bit vertiginous, but once the footbridge got a bit wider, it started to feel more comfortable. The visit to the canyon traveled two ways on the footbridge which made it extra crowded, since people were walking in two directions, and the bridge was quite narrow at places.

A few nuggets of information about the river and the canyon: the river Fier has its source at the foot of  Mont Charvin, 2019 meters above the sea level, and it empties in Rhône. About 10 kilometers from Annecy it has carved this gorgeous canyon. The construction of the footbridge started in 1868 and was finished in 1869. It is about 250 meters long and hangs 20-30 meters above the river.

Next it was time to visit the secret gardens. By the time we got there it was still an hour until it opened. Since we didn’t want to wait in the heat, we decided to postpone the visit to some other time, and drove home.