The Legend of Annecy vol. II: Return to Snow Mountain
February 8-12, 2018
We were blown away with how beautiful Annecy was during our first visit. Nestled between mountains and situated on a gorgeous lake in the Haute-Savoie region of France, it's about as picturesque as a town can get. Though we first saw it in the summer, Annecy's location in the middle of the French Alps made it was easy to imagine how great of a town it would be in the winter as well.
Though this was Josh and Tassa's second year living in Annecy, they still hadn't explored any of the mountains surrounding the town. There aren't any mountains around Berlin, and we hadn't specifically made a trip yet to go and play in the snow, so we figured our return to Annecy should be a wintery mountain adventure. We booked some last minute flights and took off before dawn for another foray into France. The cheapest flights brought us into Geneva, where we could catch a bus from the airport that got us into Annecy in the early afternoon.
Planning this trip was a learning experience. Primarily, we learned that you can't plan a ski weekend staying in a cabin, hotel, or any other sort of accommodation in the French Alps on the particular weekend we'd chosen with only a week to plan. Unbeknownst to us, our long weekend in the Alps fell on a German winter school holiday, and the following week marked the beginning of the French winter school holiday. We accidentally chose one of the busiest vacation weekends in the entire winter, and virtually everybody in Europe had already planned a ski weekend when we wanted one. As a result, there was virtually no housing available in the mountains when we started looking into it, after we'd already bought plane tickets. Luckily, Annecy is a mere 30 minutes away from several ski areas, so it wasn't going to be hard to use Josh and Tassa's house as a home base - it just meant we couldn't have a cabin in the snow with a fireplace as we had fantasized. Please, try deep in your heart to feel bad for us.
The first piece of business upon arriving in France, as always, was to eat some cheese. We went into town for some sandwiches comprised of a small layer of cured ham and half a pound of hot, melted raclette scooped onto a baguette. This massive cheese bomb was almost too much to handle in a single serving, and proved to be all the raclette we needed for the entire weekend. We spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to walk off the cheese bloats.
Toddlers are great at making friends quickly. Though she probably couldn't have remembered us from our first visit, Josh and Tassa's daughter Chloe was referring to us as "my friends" within about 10 minutes of us being in the house and asking us to read her books.
Since moving to France, Josh has started learning about the multitude of French wines and slowly building his own collection of different varieties. Luckily for us, this visit was a perfect opportunity for him to play sommelier, and so each evening we ate at his house we were treated to several paired bottles of wine to accompany the excellent food he had prepared. Chatting with friends, eating bone marrow on toasted baguette, and drinking glass after glass of delicious French wine is an excellent way to spend any evening.
We decided our first trip into the mountains was going to be to La Clusaz, an archetypal Alpine chalet town with a large number of shops and restaurants situated right at the bottom of the ski runs. Josh had never downhill skied before, and Mazz had only tried it once in New Zealand. Kirb skied as a kid but had only done it a handful of times as an adult. We considered getting private lessons, but it seemed complicated and expensive, so we hoped that Kirb was proficient enough to show the other two the ropes on the bunny slope so that the three of us could eventually progress to some simple hills on the actual mountain.
Renting gear and buying lift passes were surprisingly less expensive than we had expected (€19 and €33, respectively), and much more reasonable than the cost back in the States. We made our way slowly to the learning area and started from ground zero: how to walk wearing skis. After much slipping and slow moving, we eventually got to the lift that pulled us up to the top of the bunny hill. The next two hours included a lot of falling over and frustration. Unfortunately, Mazz was not exactly a "natural" on skis. Though she remembered performing well in her first attempt years ago, her first ski day in France ended after two hours with only two trips down the bunny slope and a busted finger. Luckily, La Clusaz had several bars in the village.
Josh picked up the basics quite well, and was ready to take a lift up the mountain after his two hours practicing. We mapped out a course of easy slopes and made our way up a massive chairlift that put us on top of a mountain, where we were greeted with a stunning 360-degree panorama of the alps. From the top we were able to string together a late afternoon's-worth of green and blue cruise runs that took us all the way around and down the mountain back to our starting point. With bright blue skies, a softly setting sun, and gorgeous mountain views appearing around every corner, both Kirb and Josh were exceedingly pleased with where they were in the world and what they were doing.
Josh and Tassa had made dinner reservations that night for the four of us at their favorite restaurant in Annecy, Kamouraska. Run by a husband chef and wife sommelier, the restaurant serves innovative fare steeped in French tradition, with a selection of excellent wines from across Europe. Josh and Tassa have eaten there enough to become friends with the owners, so we simply ordered two of everything on the menu and let our host choose the wines to accompany our meal. Though there was some sticker shock after the meal, particularly for the wines (we don't buy too many €60 bottles with our dinners), the fare was exceptional. Both of our favorite dishes were the charred beets in an anchovy and cream sauce, which was especially surprising for Kirb, as he thinks beets taste like sweet dirt and generally avoids them.
The Annecy weekend farmer's market is our happy place. We loved it the first time we went, and on second visit it was just as impressive. The quality of ingredients there is unparalleled, as is the variety of fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses. We loaded up on favorites like Saint-Félicien and bleu chèvre, crusty bread, massive Brussels sprouts, and duck breast for dinner.
When we got back to the house Chloe started banging on a drum in the living room, so Kirb picked up a guitar and played along. Within minutes, the band Birdies Da Da Da was born. We'll be touring Europe this summer.
Like the last time we visited France, we happened to show up during Soldes, the twice-annual time when everything is on sale in stores. After enjoying some of our bounty from the market for lunch, we set off into the city for shopping after lunch while Josh, Tassa, and Chloe took naps and relaxed.
For dinner, we collaborated on duck two ways with Kirb and Mazz's signature Brussels sprouts. Tassa's mom had given them several jars of duck confit, so we prepared a large piece of it along with fresh, seared duck breast, served on top of giant beans cooked in wine, garlic, onions, and herbs. The food was top-notch, and Josh paired the meal with several bottles of excellent wine. For dessert we had bought a special pie from the region called Au Puits Savoyard, which had raspberry filling, a whipped cream center, and a crème brûlée top. We all acted as though we couldn't possibly finish it all between the four of us and then completely demolished the entire thing as soon as we had tasted it. Though it was a different experience and different approach, we found the (mostly) French meal we'd assembled ourselves every bit as enjoyable as the expensive meal out the night before. Mazz however spent the entire next day feeling like there was an indigestible brick of duck fat in her gut.
On Sunday we headed to a different mountain, called Semnoz, that was also only a half an hour from Annecy but in the opposite direction from our Friday excursion. Less touristy and fancy than La Clusaz, this mountain offered a family-friendly sledding hill that was free for anyone to use, and renting sleds for the afternoon cost only a few euros. Sledding and playing in the snow is wholesome fun for people of all ages, and if you don't think that's true then you are a monster. We spent hours going down hills, exploring yurts in the forest that smelled like old wine, and building a snowman. When we got hungry and cold we made our way to a lodge for Croque Madame sandwiches and hot mulled wine.
We returned to Semnoz the following day after Chloe had been dropped off at her nanny to continue our mountain adventures, this time renting snowshoes for a trek up and around the mountain. Somehow, nether of us had ever been snowshoeing before, but Josh had done it several times back in Oregon. Mazz had a bit of trouble in the beginning when her snowshoe completely fell off, but after making it a bit tighter there were no more complications and she managed not to fall over once the entire day. It had snowed quite a bit the night before, so there was lots of fluffy powder to cushion each step. By the time we made it to the top of the mountain we were in a whiteout with no visibility, and Kirb's mustache was frozen. The whiteout thinned as we made our way back down, and the towns below opened up with sunshine.
Along the top of the trail we had passed a couple chalet restaurants, so after we returned our gear we made our way back up the mountain in the car to find something to eat. Josh's car was not equipped for even a moderate amount of slush, and we quickly got stuck trying to park the car. Kirb got out to help push but it wasn't enough. Mazz got out to help too but ended up just taking pictures of Kirb pushing and laughing at him. After all that work, the restaurant was only serving drinks, so we ordered beers and thought about how we wished we were eating burgers with foie gras on them.
When we made it back down to Annecy the weather had cleared and the city and surrounding mountains were aglow in golden light. It wasn't late enough for restaurants to be open for dinner, and most had closed up past lunch, so there were few food options to be found. Eventually we settled for more sandwiches, but this time we opted for versions with a local sausage call diot and a reasonable portion of melted reblochon. We were so hungry that we ate them standing outside the shop instead of walking back to the park.
We picked up Chloe from the nanny and made our way to the lake for some playtime and a sunset walk around the water. The sunset made the already beautiful surroundings even more idyllic, and then snow started to fall softly without interrupting the sunshine. France, and Annecy in particular, is just the goddamn best.