I don’t think there are many times in my life where I can truthfully say that I felt like Drake.

I mean Drake is a pretty big deal. First of all, anyone that is known internationally on a one name basis is already up there (do you know how many famous Julia’s I would have to knock out before I became THE Julia?! Although, Andy tells me I am #1 in his heart so maybe that counts for something…). Second of all, can we just talk about how wildly successful he has been? I think I lost count of how many Number 1 albums he has because everything he produces turns to gold.

I could go on, but I think the facts are clear: Drake is a boss and I am a little minion.

Except for when Andy and I went to Lake Annecy. Then, and only then, I actually became Drake.

STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM, NOW WE HERE!

Yes, that is right. I am comparing my ascent from a poor, sunburnt human in Lyon to a happy, not-overheated human in Lake Annecy to Drake’s life ascent.

It’s basically the same thing.

And I tell you, if you ever visit Lake Annecy (Go! You must go!), you will undoubtedly feel the same rise to the top that we did.

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The first thing that Andy and I noticed when we stepped off the train in Annecy was a breeze. Yes, you heard that right: there was an actual breeze in Annecy!! Which means for the first time during my sunburnt saga, we were actually a comfortable temperature. #ThankYouWeatherGods

After dropping our bags off at the hotel, Andy and I headed to the top of a nearby mountain, Semnoz, which is somewhere around 1,700 m high.

(I am proud to say that even with our lack of French, Andy and I found the bus we needed to take to get to the top, successfully bought our tickets AND somehow got off at the right stop. What a win!! But also, I highly recommend the visitor center in the middle of town because they are really the ones that hooked us up with all this information…not that I want to belittle our accomplishments or anything 😊)

The top of Semnoz was gorgeous. The mountain is clearly a place to ski in the winter, but even just walking around at the top was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

During our walk we encountered a group of paragliders. Andy was dying to go paragliding, but even just watching the paragliders made me fear for my life. Heights are clearly not my thing…

We also encountered a ton of cows.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my animal knowledge is severely lacking (my parents taught me about apartheid instead #sorrynotsorry), but what kind of genius idea is it to keep cows contained by a rope? A SKINNY TINY ROPE! Well technically, it’s two pieces of skinny, tiny rope, but still!! I was basically tiptoeing past these cows and praying they wouldn’t notice me and try to attack.

(Andy tells me that I’m being ridiculous, but he also wanted to go paragliding so I can’t help but to question his judgement 😲)

Cows aside, heading up to the mountains was an excellent first day activity in Annecy.

Of course, no trip to Annecy would be complete without experiencing the lake. Lake Annecy is the cleanest lake in Europe (such a difference from the Potomac River we are familiar with!). The average depth of the lake is 42 meters. Interestingly, the lake doesn’t freeze in the winter. In the winter the lake temperature is around 40 degrees Fahrenheit and in the summer the temperature is around 75 degrees.

The lake is gorgeous. Surrounded by mountains, the lake has such a calm, yet rustic, vibe to it. It actually really reminded me of our honeymoon in Italy at Lake Iseo (can you tell we’re all about the lakes 🙌🙌).

On our second day in Annecy (July 5), Andy and I had our first full day of relaxation on the vacation. Although there is public access to the lake, we decided to splurge and purchase entrance to a private club called Moon Club so we could get chairs and an umbrella. This was mostly done for the umbrella because let’s be real, we were way to scarred after our experience in London…

There was nothing super fancy about the Moon Club, but it was great to be able to (1) just relax by doing absolutely nothing and (2) enjoy the wonderful weather and views.

Also, just as a side note, although everyone we talked to in Annecy raved about the great temperature of the lake water, it was WAY more cold than I was expecting! It was nice to be able to jump in and cool down, but it wasn’t exactly hanging-out-in-the-water-for-several-hours kind of temperature.

Of course, the lake is not the only beautiful part of Annecy. I’m going to be honest with you: the whole freaking city is just gorgeous. You know those people in your life that no matter what they wear they still somehow look like they stepped off the front cover of a magazine? Well, that is Annecy for you.

Rainy? Still gorgeous. Cloudy? Still gorgeous. Sunshine? EVEN MORE GORGEOUS.

I would say that it must be tough to be so perfect all the time, but being that I don’t know anything about that I can only make guesses 😁😁😁

The downtown area of the city (also known as the “old town of Annecy”) is small, making it great for visitors because you can walk everywhere. There are canals throughout the city which not only adds to the picturesque landscape, but also allows restaurants to have outdoor balconies overlooking the water.

Andy and I took walks through the city each night, just enjoying the scenery and being outside.

On our last day, Andy and I decided to leave the town of Annecy and head outwards. While Annecy is the largest town on the lake, there are actually several smaller towns surrounding the entire lake. We bought tickets for a boat that would take us around the entire lake, allowing us to hop off and experience a smaller city along the way.

We woke up early and took the first boat out of Annecy.

Our first stop was the city of Talloires.

Now, what you may not realize is that the Tour de France had just begun a day earlier. While neither Andy nor I are super avid biking fans, we decided to embrace a “when in France…” mentality.

So we embarked on our own Tour de France. Kind of. Ish. Okay, we decided to rent bikes and ride around the countryside and pretend we were part of the Tour de France…minus the fast speed and the intense biking outfits and the crowds cheering us on….

You get the picture 🙂

Stage 1: BaseCamp

Not that you necessarily want to take life advice from me, buttttt if by chance you end up in Annecy and find yourself wanting to go on a mini-tour de France, I HIGHLY recommend renting your bikes from BaseCamp.

BaseCamp has a shop at the top of a steep road in Talloires. (So yes, please prepare your glute muscles in advance for this climb.) Not only do they do bike tours and bike rentals, but they also have a cafe attached. Given the serious caffeine addiction that Andy and I both have, we obviously decided to grab an espresso.

While enjoying our drinks, we were able to rent bikes for the day. And they were NICE bikes too!! Granted, our standards are pretty low when it comes to bikes, but these bikes almost made me want to become a bike rider.

Almost. For a hot second. And then I remembered that I am very bad at balance and my butt has never gotten used to the whole bike seat. Well, it was a good idea anyways. 🤷🏻

After our pit stop for bikes and coffee, we were off!

Stage 2: Pretty Scenery

So we had this grand idea of biking to a nearby castle. And in our defense, it really was a grand idea. Unfortunately, it was also a hilly idea.

(If you haven’t picked up on this by now….EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT THE LAKE IS FREAKING HILLS ON HILLS ON HILLS!)

Google maps took us on a back-road adventure and when I say back-roads, I legitimately mean we were on a dirt path biking through a mountainside with no humans or cars in sight.

I am not going to pretend to you that I rode most of the time. In reality, I was way too scared I was going to pop a tire on a rock, too worried that I would fall of the side of the path or too weak to pedal up the steep hill (don’t judge my quad muscles, they’re a work in progress haha). So in typical Julia-biking fashion, I ended up pushing my bike a lot. Nothing like strong shoulders, am I right?

On the bright side, every once in a while the path would clear up and we would be rewarded with stunning views!

Stage 3: A CASTLE!!!

After a bit of soul searching (and intense bike riding) we finally made it to Stage 3: THE ACTUAL CASTLE!!!!!

The Castle of Menthon was built in the 10th century, but only became inhabited by residents in the 15th century. For the last 1,000 years, the castle has been owned by the family of Menthon (guess you can figure out where the castle got its name huh? 😁). There’s a rumor that the Castle of Menthon inspired Walt Disney’s castle in Sleeping Beauty. This seems like a bit of a stretch, but I’m okay with pretending that I walk on the same ground as famous princesses 🙂

The inside of the castle wasn’t open when we first arrived, but after we bought tickets we were able to roam around the grounds of the castle.

Maybe it’s just my inner royalty, but man did we look good with the castle as a backdrop!

In the midst of taking all our pictures, the front door of the castle opened signaling that visitors could finally enter. There were about 15 – 20 people waiting with us and everyone went inside when the doors opened. Andy and I decided that we would wait a bit to start our self-tour so we wouldn’t be on top of all the others. A man who worked for the castle came out and asked if we wanted to come inside. We signaled that we were good and we would wait before entering. He shrugged his shoulders and then shut the door.

Wait, what? Why did he just shut the door? Weren’t we allowed to enter the castle at any time?

Andy and I run up to the door and feverishly try to read what it says on the sign posted on the door. Except its in french. And we don’t speak or read french. We immediately google translate and realize that (1) you can only enter the castle with a tour and (2) the tours are once every hour.

Uh-oh. Soooo not only are we not able to enter the castle, but we have to wait a whole hour until the next tour?!?!

Well when confronted with this information, there’s only one solution: Bang on the door until someone comes to open it for you.

Yep, you read that right. We proceeded to bang on the door and just kept saying “please” in french (one of the few words we knew).

And you wonder why the French hate Americans….

Thankfully, after five minutes someone opened the door so Andy and I were able to join the tour. And yes, for the record, I have never been so embarrassed walking into a room and joining a group of strangers.

While the tour was completely in french, we did have a little booklet in english that explained some of the information discussed. That being said, I feel VERY confident that if you are fluent in french, you would learn a lot more on this tour than Andy and I did 🙂

There were some interesting aspects of the castle:

• The kitchen was located far away from the dining room so the Menthon family decided to build a tunnel (20 meters long) to be able to pull the food from the kitchen to the dining room.

• In one of the hallways they have a whole wall full of keys. Can you believe how many keys existed for the castle?!? I can barely keep track of my car key and my house key, let alone 100 keys for one single location.

• They had a framed painting of the Menthon family tree. I know I’m not famous, but I could definitely get into having one of these in my house.

• The castle library has EXACTLY 12,000 books. I don’t want to know who was responsible for counting (and re-counting) all of these books, but it does make me want to move a book into another room just because 🙂

• Okay, I’m going to completely honest and say I have NO idea what this is (the tour guide pointed at this and said some words in French…). But I thought it looked kind of funny so I made Andy pose for a picture. He loves me, truly he does. haha

But the COOLEST part about the castle is the story of Saint Bernard of Menthon.

Poor Bernard just wanted to be part of the church, but his dad arranged a marriage for him against his wishes. His dad knew Bernard was not about the wedding, so he decided to lock Bernard in the bedroom on the day before his wedding (seriously, someone didn’t want to win the Dad-of-the-year-award!). Bernard was tired of obeying his father and was not trying to have this wedding. So, according to legend, Bernard jumps out his window and is caught by an angel who leads Bernard to Italy where he becomes deacon and archdeacon.

YOU GO BERNARD! YOU DO YOU! DON’T LET YOUR PARENTS PUT YOU IN A CORNER LIKE THAT!

Clearly, I’m #TeamBernard.

After our castle tour, Andy and I rode back to BaseCamp to return our bikes.

Stage 4: The Search for Food

Anyone that knows Andy knows how food rules his life. We do not leave the house without making sure we have snacks for Andy. A hungry Andy is not an Andy you want to see. (But, Andy, if you’re reading this know that I love you no matter what. Even when the world must stop so you can eat 💜💜💜)

So I hope you can understand how big of a deal that we missed lunch because our bike riding adventure took longer than anticipated.

See, in France (any many places in Europe), you cannot find food after 2 PM and before 5:30 PM. All the restaurants close between lunch and dinner, which is normally not a big deal. But then there is that time when you’re starving and you can’t find a single place to get food and it is suddenly a VERY big deal.

On our way to the boat dock Andy and I stopped at at least five places to see if we could get food. The only place that was still serving food had an hour plus wait and the food didn’t even look that good from what we could see. We decided that we should just get on the boat and head back to Annecy, where it would be easier for us to find food (or at least a grocery store).

The boat took us the rest of the way around the lake and back up towards Annecy. As we approached the last stop before Annecy, Sevrier, we looked out the window and saw that there was a place to rent boats. Even though we were starving, we said screw it and just got off the boat (as you may imagine, this was a split second decision so we almost missed getting off the boat and once again found ourselves running and trying to beg in french 😂).

Sometimes impulse decisions don’t work out. In this case, we definitely won at life.

In Sevrier, we were able to find a cafe that had some ready-made sandwiches to eat.

After eating, we decided to check out the boat rental place and we learned they had stand-up paddle boards! Andy and I had never gone, but had always wanted to try.

So. Much. Fun.

It was just the two of us out there and the water felt truly wonderful (not that we fell in because we were bad…more like we enjoyed finding ways to knock the other one off their board haha). There could not have been a better way to end our day.

Annecy was such a wonderful town to visit. I wish we had stayed for longer than just three days; we could have easily spent a week there.

Guess there will need to be a next time!

P.S. I didn’t really discuss our lodging in this post, but I would be remiss in not mentioning the wonderful hotel we stayed in: Allobroges Park Hotel. It was super close to the train station (easy for luggage drop-off) and the rooms were beyond comfortable. The air conditioning actually worked, the pillows were thick and fluffy and the curtains blacked out the entire room. Five stars for the hotel!