Gorge

A bit of a day for bitting and bobbing. In the morning we drove to the Gorge du Fier, where a kind of nineteenth Century tourist attraction, lovingly kept-on with a turnstyle entrance and a crap gift shop, consists of a trail along the gorge, partly along slightly precarious walkways built high into the walls over the rapids of the Fier which have cut deep into the stone. The rocks form pools and ‘marmites’ and opportunities to make out sculptural features and “faces” in the gorge sides. It’s a bit of a weird place and actually much cooler than it perhaps sounds. We stopped in Annecy on the way back for an ice cream (by now we have our favourite vendor, right by the bridge to the Palais de L’Isle, but the pistachio ice cream is so good I still can’t bring myself to try another flavour.) Then we drove to Talloires, having previously earmarked it as a good looking place for a pedallo ride and a swim in the Lake. It’s a fairly upmarket town, with some swish hotels and restaurants and an annual Art Festival, but it has a really nice, laidback kind of a vibe, perfectly accommodating to scruffy oiks like us, who skip the pay-beach, eat our sarnies under the trees at the port and get changed under our towels! Plus pedallo-ing turns out to be one of things where I think I’ll just be providing the muscle but actually turn out to really enjoy – swimming a bit out into the lake, away from the stones, moored boat and sunbathers, where it’s properly deep, is really much better than splashing in clumsily from the side. Unfortunately, both Beck and Tom got a bit seasick and we had to cut things short – still, pretty cool.