European Travel

Annecy, France

If I had to pick the top five places I visited while studying abroad, Annecy, France would be one of them. This place is beautiful! You can tell that this place is beautiful because Bronson, Jordan, and I visited this lovely town on a cloudy day, and it was still incroyable.

When you imagine small town France with cobblestone streets and colored buildings, you’re likely imagining something similar to Annecy. It almost reminded me of Venice a little bit since the town is surrounded by this body of water running through it.

As if this place couldn’t get any better, you can also see the Alps from here which is really amazing!

So, my two great friends and I got here pretty early in the morning and spent the day roaming around the town. We went into different shops, churches, restaurants, book stores, etc. I would say for anyone traveling here that you could see the entire town in one full day, but I think it would be worth staying a night so you can really take your time to explore. Plus, seeing anything twice here is totally worth it considering how amazing the scenery is.

The best part about our trip to Annecy, was our ‘attempt’ to get back home to Dijon. Please keep in mind that we visited Annecy on a Saturday. We had tickets to leave Annecy by train probably around 4 PM. When we arrived to the train station, we saw that our train was cancelled. Delayed, you mean? No, cancelled. (French train strikes, yet again). So, the three of us anxiously walked over to the counter where we talked with an employee there to see what we could do.

When we first brought up the issue, the employee, very calmly, says “le prochain train est mardi.” (the next train is Tuesday) and not a second goes by before Bronson yells “TUESDAY?!?!” in English. It was at this moment, with Bronson panicking on my left, and Jordan celebrating this fun “adventure” on my right, that I made the boys walk away so that I could handle this situation.

Long story short, we got three different train tickets to bring us back to Dijon. So, as we hop on the first train, things seem to be going well. The train is moving, which was shocking considering when theres a train strike in France, it’s hard to find any train in motion. We get off our first transfer, get on our second, and again, the train is moving – we’re in luck.

As my facebook caption states: “When your train gets changed for the umpteenth time”

We arrive at Lyon, where we are to get onto our third train back to Dijon. Ha, think again. As if taking three trains back to Dijon wasn’t easy enough, we’re gonna cancel your third train!! Bronson, again panicking, and Jordan, loving every second of this adventure, really created quite the scene as we realized that our third train is indeed, not departing for Dijon.

So again, we head to the counter, which at this point doesn’t have many people at it since it’s so late at night, so we really are not in high hopes to find a train back to Dijon that night.

Thankfully, the woman at the counter got us a voucher for three hotel rooms for us to stay in Lyon for the night, with our train leaving the next morning. We gratefully took our vouchers from her and headed to the hotel right around the corner.

The three of us were BEYOND tired, but for some reason decided to stay up and hang out till god only knows what time. Due to our pure exhaustion, the night was spent tearfully laughing about the stupidest things, including remixed videos of Julia Child’s cooking. Here’s a picture of us hanging out in the hotel room, commented on facebook as “So. Unbelievably. Tired.”

So, our trip to Annecy turned into a trip to Annecy, Lyon, and two other towns. Our trip to Annecy also turned into an extremely memorable adventure that I will never forget.

So, for all of you headed to Eastern France, please please please visit Annecy! You will not regret it at all. It is super charming and the scenery is like no other place I’ve been to.