A Leisurly Drive Through The French Alps

After our successful driving escapades through the Tuscan hills in Italy, we were keen to see how the French Alps and The Rhone Valley would compare.  We based ourselves in a pretty little town at the base of the French Alps, called Annecy.  It has the nickname of the 'Venice of France' due to its few smallish canals that run through the north of the city.

We were up early to see which manly machine we were getting for our day of travel.  You can imagine my excitement when we discover its a..... Renaut Twingo (sounds more like a chocolate bar than a car).  After a few tense moments of trying to put it into reverse, we were off on the right side of the road again and heading into the Alps.  Our destination was the medium sized town of Macon and then onto the wine trail through the Rhone Valley.  The drive through the Alps (literally through the mountains) was beautiful, although we were hoping to spot some snow still on the slopes, it was not to be.

We stopped for lunch at a spot overlooking a town called Chasseles and had another 'it doesn't get much better than this' moments

After a quick stop off at the local tourist office, we headed back to our 'Twingo' with an armful of maps.  It wasn't long before we were on the backroads and in 'wine country'.  I didn't think that anything could top the beauty of the Tuscan countryside, however the roads we were travelling would come pretty darn close.  Sometimes it seemed as though we were the only ones on the road (just the way we like it) and we quietly passed through little rustic towns surrounded by vinyards.  We stopped for lunch at a spot overlooking a town called Chasseles and had another 'it doesn't get much better than this' moments.

What we really wanted to find however, was a winery that was open, so we could sample some of the famous wine from the region.  Just when we thought luck had deserted us, we rang the bell of a winery and managed to wake an old man by the name of Domain out of bed. Again, we had found in Domain another little old man that Linda wanted to package up and take home with her! He was just so adorable. One of the cutest moments was when Linda asked him to take a photo of us, and he mistook us to mean that we wanted to take a photo of him, and he promptly posed proudly next to me with his wine in hand! We had a lovely chat with him and despite some language difficulties he managed to tell us all about his grandson (he called him his small son....a literal translation of grandson in French) and the fact that his winery is a family business with his wife and son and daughter in law all helping out. We couldnt believe how hard he must work in the summer considering he was 78 years old! No wonder he was sleeping when we arrived!

So with a couple of bottles of wine in hand, our French quest for wine had finally succeeded. It was getting late by this stage, but we managed to stop off at a few more wineries before heading home to Annecy. You may remember the hell we went through trying to escape the evil clutches of Pisa when driving in the Tuscan countryside. Well if you take that pain and times it by infinity it might give you some idea of the hell we went through trying to return the car to Annecy. It started when the Avis salesperson gave us the wrong directions for the turnoff into the carpark and escalated from there with the millions of one way streets and the horrible signs which seem to point the wrong way or both ways and the evil tunnels which take you out of town. I think we went in and out of Annecy a total of about 10 times before we finally managed to make it back to the train station to park the car. Never Again!

Needless to say, we were pooped when we got back to Annecy. The combination of Pooped Fidges + Several Bottles of Wine = Day of Debauchery in bed eating chocolate and cheese and drinking wine and watching daytime television! Does it get any better than this! We did manage to drag ourselves out of bed at some stage to see the sights of the lovely town of Annecy, but with a quick stop off at the supermarket for supplies, it was right back to bed and to our day of debauchery!