Annecy trip

Last Thursday, Lorraine took the train from Lyon to the beautiful town of Annecy, which is at the edge of the Alps.  The town sits on beautiful lake Annecy, at the mouth of the Thiou river.  Sometimes called the "Venice of France", it is criss-crossed by canals, which are frequently lined with flower boxes.

There is evidence of human habitation in the Annecy area from at least the first century BC.  These old streets aren't quite that old, but they show the medieval character of the old town.

In one of the main canals, there is a building, the Palais de L'Ile, which dates from the 12th century.  It served as a prison for some time, although the water surrounding it now would not serve as much a deterrent to an escape.

A food specialty of the area is cheese fondue using, among others, the excellent melting cheese, raclete.  We (mostly I) decided that we must have some for lunch.

It was, as expected, delicious although the sterno-type burner under the cheese had a hard time staying lit.

After lunch we took a boat trip up the lake and back.  Here is the boat.

The lake is surrounded by mountains that come right down to the water level, but they leave room for some wonderful homes and some gorgeous old castles.

Some of these old castles/chateaux have become luxury hotels, but a number of them, including the next one, are still in private hands.

 The layers of mountains around the lake were quite impressive.  Mount Blanc, which is the highest mountain in Europe at 4820 meters, is not far from Annecy, but is hidden by intervening mountains.

Interestingly enough, while we couldn't see Mt. Blanc when we were relatively close to it in Annecy, we can see it on a very clear day from the Croix-Rousse area of Lyon, only a short walk from our apartment.  This picture is taken (with my cell phone) from the Gros Caillou area, one of our favorite watering holes, right on the edge of the Croix-Rousse plateau.  The contrast is not great, but Mt. Blanc is easy to make out in the center.  This is pretty incredible to me since the mountain is 232.5 kilometers (139.5 miles) from Lyon.

As we came back into the port at Annecy, we got a great view of the Musee-Chateau.

We were totally charmed by Annecy, and hope to go back there again before our year in Lyon is over.  Unfortunately, it seems that there are too many fabulous places for us to go, and a year is not long enough to do it all.  We shall see!

Car show at Oscar's

Lorraine and I had the opportunity to go to an Internations event at Le Puce du Canal, which is a very large flea-market type operation.  Our event was at the restaurant, Oscar's.  There was also a car show going on while we were there, so we got to see some great cars that don't usually appear at US car shows.  There were a number of old cars, many of which I couldn't identify, and a few newer ones.  Here are some of them:  First a wonderfully restored bright orange Morgan, with us blocking the view.

It is fully operational;  I saw it drive away.

There were some old Porsches.  I really liked the silver one.

There were a couple of nice Mini-Coopers, which made me think of my friends, John and Ellen Morgan, who have some of their own.

There were a couple of old Jaguars, a beautiful XK-150 (I think), and an early XKE set up for racing.

There was a Ford Cobra with the standard Shelby racing stripes.

There were several old sedans that I couldn't identify, but I could picture Bonnie and Clyde using.  These didn't have bullet holes!

I liked this beautiful white roadster, also not identified.  If I had a better command of French, I could probably found out what some of these cars were.  I can ask questions, but it is a sure thing that I won't understand the answers.

I had an office mate at NASA, Bob Dunning, who always drove a Citroen.  There was an old DBV in the lot, but it left before I took pictures.  A DS-19 in good condition drove in late.  This was the car Bob drove.  He liked to use the air suspension to raise and lower the car when he was stopped at a stoplight - to the delight of kids in neighboring cars.

I'll stop this post for now. I still have some catching-up to do, and we are going to Annecy, in the French alps, for a day trip tomorrow.
A bientot.