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TIMEOUT

A lark on the lake

GUSTASP AND JEROO IRANI

A charming lake town where it would seem the 21st Century never happened.

PHOTO: GUSTASP AND JEROO IRANI

Prison with a view: The hilltop castle overlooking the lake.

THE queen was incarcerated in a lonely tower of the castle in the French town of Annecy. She had been thrown in there by her errant husband the King who had tired of her whining. She constantly complained about his philandering ways and this led to marital disharmony. The King decided to silence his wife forever entombing her amidst walls four metres thick.

But help came from unexpected quarters. Monks from an abbey across the lake in the village of Talloires rescued the hapless queen. History is silent about what happened to her after her escape but there are whispers that the king abetted the holy effort so as to be rid of his cantankerous spouse. The abbey is now a posh historic hotel by the lake of Annecy and the Chief Monk's room is a prized suite. But there's a hitch — it is adorned with portraits of past chief monks who look down gloomily at the new occupants of their abode.

The hilltop castle where the queen was imprisoned is now a museum called the Musee Chateau, which affords a superb view of Annecy, the city of romance and legend, 40 km away from Geneva airport and three and a half hours by TGV from Paris. The tower where the queen languished is called the Queen's Tower... It was most definitely a prison with a view!

Relaxed atmosphere

Annecy is a charming lake town studded with around 10 villages where it would seem the 21st Century never happened. Sevrier, Saint-Jorioz, Duingt, Talloires... are some of the lyrically named villages that grace the sunny banks of the lake. In the course of the three agenda-less days that we spent in and around Annecy, we experienced exclusive full-stop seclusion and autumnal days filled with russet, gold, amber hues; lunches at lakeshore restaurants, power naps in the sun, sipping cocktails at terrace bars watching a post sunset sky, streaked red, simmering like a volcano.

In the day we would amble along the road that etched the chiselled landscape, skirting solitary farmhouses; speculating on the lives of people who lived in vintage homes with flower draped trellised windows. In the course of our explorations we stumbled on a chateau bestride a cliff with a grandeur-in-the-wilderness air whose owner's identity is a mystery; some say yesteryear actor, Jean Paul Belmondo, owns the castle. Another ivy-smothered castle, skirted by a magical parkland, is the venue of open-air concerts.

We lingered in Talloires, a minuscule village where the only signs of modernity were an ATM machine in a quaint post office and the swish interiors of the handful of hotels. The warm old-world charm of Auberge du Pere Bise, a 104-year-old hostelry with a Michelin starred restaurant, convinced us that the prettiest retreats are relatively hard to access. As the sun set, the sky seemed to put on a suit of light, and beyond, the lake shimmered a molten gold. Church bells pealed and the aroma of wood smoke clung to our nostrils and lingered in our garments in fugitive wisps.

AUTUMN COLOURS: Flower draped windows.

In summer the sky is dotted with colourful para gliders and the lake shore with tourist hordes that broil themselves an alarming pink as they take in the sun. We, however, were there in autumn, a time of the year when Annecy and the surrounding villages are a celebration of the ethos that indolence is bliss.

Annecy left us in a sensual spell — the kiss of the breeze at lakeside; the old-fashioned service in our bed-and-breakfast inn; all this in a setting that exploded with fragrance and colour. The town and its bucolic villages are best discovered on foot or languidly by boat or on a bike, peddling along paths that hug the lake. We would dawdle along carrying picnic hampers filled with ham and cheese, revelling in the feel of a chilled bottle of local wine as sweet and sparkling as the waters of the lake, said to be the purest in Europe. This indeed is a beautiful land for aging slowly.

Some town life

If you've had a surfeit of nature, head for the old town of Annecy, which is a necklace of cobblestone streets. The sun had rendered the limestone walls of the old city into gold and the air was heavy with legend and unspoken secrets. A pretty local guide told us about how Annecy was ruled by the counts of Geneva, the last of whom died without an heir. A minor branch of the Dukes of Savoie who lived in the 1325 castle that straddles the Thiou canal subsequently ruled the town. Called the Palais de L'ile, at night the castle acquires heroic proportions and its floodlit girth has become a city icon. It has had many avatars and was even a prison where prisoners slept on highly uncomfortable wooden sloping beds and survived on watery gruel.

Outside swans tranquilly glided on the waters of the canal and we walked past cloistered homes with windows left open to field bird calls and the soft breeze, over narrow bridges, past deep wells, bubbling fountains, and underground canals. Here trees and ancient stonewalls leaned together like old neighbours. The Old Town was the crossroads of trade and commerce and the tradition is still alive today with open-air markets being held on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. We watched a plump mama trundle her bicycle to the market seeming to enjoy the fragrance of the flower-filled air.

On our last afternoon, we had lunch at a delectable lake front hotel restaurant called Auberge de Chuguet in the village of Sevrier. The glass walled eatery commanded expansive views — the sky above was an arabesque of colour — para gliders floating languidly in the sky like bronzed gods; the lake rippled with luxury yachts; sail boats idled in the boat houses of luxury mansions. In the quiet confines, we savoured terrine de foie gras, filet de fera meuniere (a delectable lake fish); and filet de boeuf marine washed down with some wine from the Savoie region.

Outside, the landscape was a delicate conspiracy of man and nature and the lake, shifting shades of blue and green, seemed to move to hazy infinity. We were enveloped in oceans of air, and sienna and russet hues, marvelling at nature's flamboyance and the time-stopped calm of this enchanting corner of the country.

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