16/17 April

The photo is of the street in front of Sue and Serge's home.... our generous hosts and superb tour guides!!






After a special lunch of blood sausage and stewed apples (of course accompanied by bread, cheese and wine), we walked to the Chateau de Miolans, a 12th century castle that became a 16th century prison (at one stage holding the Maquis de Sade). see link for more info
http://www.chateau-de-miolans.com/ The walk was through some beautiful French countryside... it seemed like it was always uphill!



In the evening, Serge prepared a traditional Brittany treat... crepes!!!  There is a fine art to making crepes. Serge made both savoury (salty) and sweet crepes. Also keeping with Brittany tradition, we drank a few bottles of cider.  A great evening!!! and a definite need to do some more walking!!

The next day (17th) Sue took Karen and I to Annecy.  Annecy sits on the edge of Lake d'Annecy.  It is known as the Venice of the Alps because of the canals in the city.  I was a bit worried because Sue had mentioned the word... markets!!!  see link below
http://www.annecy.fr/

The city was buzzing!! In addittion to markets, there were thousands of people who had come for a marathon/half marathon, others had come for a regatta on the lake, and there was a Fiat rally in the mountains. The markets turned out to be nothing to be feared... there were vegetables, bread, cheese, olives, sausage and even more cheese.  We purchased a little of each in order to have a picnic on the shores of the lake.  We also bought some nougat for dessert!!!  The tomatoes we had were called Couer de Bouef (Bull's Heart)... wonderful flavour!

 After our picnic we travelled up le Semnoz (a local ski resort).  However, in spring there is not too much skiing but there is a lot of para-sailing.  The thermals are generated around the moutains and this provides the para-sailers plenty of opportunity to stay aloft.  There was even a little bit of snow on the ground... I had to make a snowball (more icy than snowy) and if you have a snowball... you have to throw it at someone!!

PS. We are looking forward to reading a few comments!