Tartiflettes and Génépi

About 1h30 by bus from Geneva, we got to Annecy, a pretty small clean old city with a pleasant paved old town area and canals that lead to the purestand cleanest lake in Europe: lake Annecy.

The idea of the trip was to window shop and eat. So we wandered about the Sunday market, making a mental note of the different cheese stands and the million types of saucissons. It was quite painful to walk past all the food and not being able to make a decision on what to buy. We were quite reasonable though and didn't even taste a single sample!!

Getting lost along the small streets, we were really looking for a place to sample the local fare: tartiflette. To those unaccustomed to the dish, it is not something you would eat if you were on a diet. Made of potatoes, and usually bacon and cheese (Reblochon) it is quite easy to make. I have made it a few times myself, because trust me, my pants size didn't increase by itself.

1-cook the potatoes and bacon a bit
2-put in a baking pan
3-put the cheese on top
4-cook in the oven until its melted and all gooyey
5-serve hot

We eventually found one restaurant calle the 'Munich' that served tomatoe tartiflette and goat cheese tartiflette. As you may guess, those were just additional ingredients....Imagine eating potaoes and bacon and 500g of melted cheese....feels good and heavy. We had to sit for an additional 30min chatting to digest and be able to move.

About 15minutes alter though, we stumbled on an ice cream shop that had yummy sorbet: I had a scoop of grapefruit and another one of passion fruit. We kept on walking in order to discover more shops, and so I discovered Génépi in one of those tourist trap shop. It was the perfect digestif after 800g of good food.

By 4pm we were by the lake and embarked on a 30min cruise. The weather was nice (about 16C) and no wind, so we sat outside, which was a mistake because once the boat picked up speed, the wind froze my face and the sight of the beautiful autumn leaves became secondary to protecting my eyes and nose from icy winds.

After that less than warm experience, nature blessed us with a beautiful sunset reflected on the white rocks and cliffs surrounding the lake. The setting sun reminded us of the time and so we hurried back in the shopping area for a crepe and cider before heading back to Geneva. We weren't really hungry, but it would have been a crime not to have one.

Annecy will definetely see a bit of me in the future.