Annecy: Retour des Alpages

Annecy is a cute and relatively well-known town about an hour and a half train ride from Grenoble.  It sits along the edge of Lake Annecy in the mountains and is known for its little, colorful houses lining tight streets and winding canals.  Every fall, the town holds a celebration called 'Retour des Alpages' or 'Back from the Alpine Pastures' where the local farmers and herdsmen bring their animals down from the summer pastures located high in the mountains.  The town celebrates with a parade of animals, people dressed in tradition costume, song, and dance.  It's a festive and popular parade with people packed together along the streets throughout the parade route in town.  Besides the parade, there are also plenty of market stands to pick up local and handmade goods, as well as sample the delicious, local fare.  During the fall, the tradition potato and cheese dishes like tartiflette and raclette come out. There are also yummy sausages called diot, roasted chestnuts, and plenty of vin chaud or mulled wine. 

Here's a sampling of pictures from my second time at the Retour des Alpages in October 2016.

Easter Ski Weekend

I've been getting outdoorsy a bit lately.  For my 3-day Easter weekend, I joined a university group and headed to the mountains.  

Beautiful day skiing in the Alps! Photo courtesy of K. Heidrich.

On Saturday morning, I arrived bright and early to join the bus traveling from campus to les Deux Alpes.  After sleeping most of the way up, we arrived at the resort, dropped off our bags, and headed for the pistes (slopes).  It was a beautiful, sunny day and quite warm out.  The skiing was the best at the top of the mountain on the glacier.  I took things a little bit easy since I'm still recovering from a twisted ankle, but everything went just fine.  We met up with more friends for lunch, which we enjoyed with some vin chaud sitting outside under the sunshine.  Towards the end of the day, the sun was getting quite strong and the snow was becoming a bit too slushy.  We stopped skiing for a while and went to hang out at the apres-ski destination, which was a party on top of the mountain, complete with DJ and people dressed in silly outfits.

Pano Bar on top of the mountain

Our ski day was coming to a close, but our evening was only beginning.  A group of six of us decided to save a little money and make dinner together at our rented apartment.  It was great to sit and hang out over dinner.  Our evening continued with some card games, and eventually we decided to join the crowd for a night out.  It was very fun and we ended up dancing the night away.

The next morning came early, and looking outside we discovered the mountain was covered in a blizzard.  From our little apartment, we couldn't even see the slopes just across the way.  Research told us that the intense weather would continue all day, so we decided to call it and not ski.  Instead, we ended up watching Friends (in French) and exploring the ski village.  Towards the end of the day, the whole university group was invited out for ice skating.  That was lots of fun, with people dressing up, showing off, and learning how to skate.  It was another fun night.

Ice skating! Photo courtesy of P. Briggs.

The next day was our last, so we headed back onto the slopes, stopping for an afternoon BBQ, before joining the bus back to campus.  We got the perfect seats at the front on the top of a double-decker bus.  There were beautiful views the whole way.  

Grenoble looking good.

I really enjoyed my weekend.  I feel like I got to know my friends even better and made some new ones along the way.  Grenoble and the people here are great.  I'm really feeling at home!

Skiing: Les Deux Alpes

Grenoble is a place that keeps growing on me.  I feel really at home and comfortable here.  That being said, I also feel that I've passed another milestone to being a part of Grenoble... I bought skis! A friend and I made an outing to check out skis at a second-hand shop, and we both walked out with our very own skis.  All together, my skis, boots and poles cost around 78 euros.  Not too bad, eh?  Well they're not the fanciest skis, but they work!

I tested them out for the first time last weekend when we went to a nearby ski resort called les Deux Alpes.  We arrived in the parking lot on our student bus (we both got student ski cards despite not being students this year haha!) and were quite confused... there wasn't a single patch of snow in sight!  With a slight feeling of hesitation, we decided to see what we had gotten ourselves into for the day and we took the gondola up the side of the mountain.  Our gondola took us to the base of a village, which we walked up through to find ourselves at the ski resort.  The snow ended up being ok, not fantastic, but it was a great day out nonetheless.  The ski resort is on a sort of plateau at the top of the mountain and we found some nice views the further up we went. 

We also met a group of friends for lunch and again for drinks at the apres-ski party, complete with live DJ on top of the mountain.  All in all, it was a wonderful day with great people and absolutely incredible views.  See for yourself.