I have to admit that local concoctions had been a little heavier in terms of alcohol content than I had expected, and so Day Three started off a little more slowly than I would have liked, but we had planned for this to be a shorter-drive day.
While in planning mode the previous evening, we had decided that we would continue south through France and then skirt Switzerland before cutting east and making our way over the Alps and into northern Italy. We had not decided any more than that, but worked out Lake Annecy was around 3–4 hours on the slow road, and so we would take our time and pick through the French villages and the back roads.
We opted against breakfast in the hotel. We thought that a stop-off in a little village would be nice, off the beaten track. We must only have been on the road for 2 minutes when we passed a sign for a place called Tart. If you have learnt anything about me and my family through these pages, you should know that this was an opportunity we would not be missing.
We nearly tipped the car over trying to make the right turn. Certainly, we were on two wheels to make the junction, but we were on the road to Tart! To say that the village was sleepy was an understatement; it was in a coma, but the road in was flanked by fields of glorious sunflowers, standing perfectly to attention as we passed.
It didn’t take long for us to find a bakery, Le Pain Boulanger, and we picked up some pastries and a very long baton for the boy child (to eat dry, by the way). In fact, we all had to eat our food dry, as there were no drinks available of any sort, hot or cold, and so we were a little stuck. Aside from the issues of no drinks and the lack of some actual tarts (the edible version, get your mind out of the gutter), the food was excellent and just what we needed.
Intrepid travellers that we are, we ploughed on to the next village and found ourselves in Brazey-en-Plaine and a lovely little roadside café called Le Bouclier de Bourgogne. We made friends with the very friendly locals who looked at us as if we were mad, especially when we started to buy lottery tickets to chance our luck. We were told that we were not winners, and we trusted them, despite them being French.
Powered up on caffeine and the thrill of a lottery fail, we tiptoed and twisted our way through the pretty villages in the glorious August sunshine. We noticed that a lot of the road signs seemed to have been hung upside down, too many for it to be a mistake and too many for it to be the work of one bored guy with a screwdriver and a lack of respect for clear signage.
We learned, through Google (who else!), that it was a protest by French farmers against rising fuel prices and the growing amounts of red tape that they face. The protest, known as ‘on marche sur la tête / we are walking on our heads’, is a very visible display of the farmers’ feelings that their world has been turned upside down.
Talking of which, we nearly turned a guy’s world upside down as we parped our horn at him as he was taking a very visible ‘comfort break’ in a roadside hedge. At the very least, I am pretty sure he splashed his shoe in surprise.
Our destination was Saint Ferréol, a quiet village just a short drive to the southeast of Lake Annecy, which is a stunning glacial lake in the French Alps. The lake is flanked by the Alps. The sharp, intimidating mountain looming, standing over the lake like a protective big brother at the school disco.
The hotel, The BritHotel at Florimont, was very pleasant. The chap that checked us in was incredibly friendly and seemed genuinely happy to see us, as if he was waiting for long-lost friends to show up. It was a brilliantly warm welcome, but the fact that the rooms didn’t have air conditioning made us terrified for the evening to come.
However, having not eaten since breakfast, we had other worries to deal with first. The restaurant in the hotel seemed a little too fancy for the likes of us, and so we decided to do some exploring and head back towards the lake. But we didn’t quite make it!
At the end of the lake is a commune called Doussard, sitting at the bottom of the valley. The flat open space was perfectly suited as a landing ground for anyone stupid enough to take a leap from the mountains above and slowly loop and spiral in a parachute down to the field so far below.
We were so excited watching the parachutes dropping into the landing zone alongside the roadside that we decided that it was something we could be happy watching all night. So we pulled into a roadside bar and burger joint, The Pap’s House
We ate burgers, boy child ate a salad for some reason, and we had a few drinks. We chatted. We laughed and smiled. We didn’t see any parachute accidents, so that was a little disappointing, but we enjoyed our stay.
Fed and watered, we headed up to the lake as the heat continued and that glacial water was beckoning us like Sirens on the rocks calling in sailors. Every spare piece of space at the side of the lake was filled with either camper vans or cars from all corners of Europe. Tourists clung to the side of the lake like limpets on the rocks, and we found our space to make our own.
The cooling water was a welcome relief, and we watched the sun dip below the Alps. It was stunning, and yet more thrill seekers threw themselves off the rocks above. It was a fantastic spot, only slightly tarnished by boy child loudly announcing that he was taking a piss in that lake, forgetting that the English family just next to us could understand every word he said.
They packed up. We packed up. We kept our heads down and made our way back to the hotel. We got a bit of a shock when we got back to the hotel. The lovely guy that had checked us in earlier in the day was standing waiting for us with the bill for the drinks at the hotel bar that we had forgotten to pay for. Another embarrassing event at the end of a lovely day.
As we headed off to bed, worried about the heat in the room, we had two questions. Would the two small fans in the room be enough to make the heat bearable and had we got things wrong? Were the French actually really nice? Maybe it was the heat, but it certainly seemed to be that way.
Itchy Feet and Titchy Feet 
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