ANNECY: BEAU BEAUNE

I suppose today, Thursday 23rd is the FIRST day of our holiday, though it feels much longer.

Slept well at the Campanile and enjoyed a good breakfast. A 9 O'clock departure was not unreasonable, especially given the kilometrage to Annecy, but it still proved impossible for some of the old crones, and Paul the driver was distinctly irritated (worse was to follow). One old lady who seems to have misheard everything said to her so far and then engaged in conversations about matters that were nothing to do with the launching remark simply because she got a word wrong. Anyway, conveniently she had not heard the driver's explicit instructions about bringing your own suitcase to the bus in the morning for 08:45hours. Of course, somebody went and fetched it for her - I've met this type many times before.

So we set off late in awful gloom with deeply grey skies depositing deluges of water upon us as we departed Autoroute de l'est and picked up Autoroute de l'Anglaise heading south to skirt Troyes. We paused at a small 'Aire' (Motorway Service Station or MSA) where a lovely young man with perfect French gave me a delicous Chocolat Chaud, merci. I managed to photograph a Goddess here, by which I mean the car not the young man.

Then to Beaune for lunch and sight seeing. Very much a forgotten little town, it has a very old Hospice with ornately tiled roof, but was closed for lunch. Many of the party headed into bars and restaurants whilst I mananged to take a few shots in the pretty streets instead. 90minutes is scarcely enough to have lunch in France, let alone sight see, as discovered three of our ladies who did not appear 40 minutes after the scheduled departure time. I volunteered to go and find them, as did a couple of colleagues, and they were eventually retrieved after they had phoned Travelsphere in the UK who phoned the courier to tell her which restaurant they were in. We left Beaune one hour late.

The rain stopped for our foray into lovely Beaune and the sun almost shone; ah things are looking up. Now we're heading hard for Les Alpes in a blueing dusk that is DRY!

As a postscript, we arrived at Annecy in reasonable time and enjoyed a lovely meal of 3 cheese tart, Salmon in Filo pastry, and Tarte au Myrtille - suited me fine. Then I went a walk into the old town and snapped a couple of Christmassy shots - Enjoy!

This Blog continues after the Photos