When I was in business school at Thunderbird, I spent a short winter semester at their satellite campus in Archamps, France – which is actually close to the Swiss border and Geneva. While there, my fellow students and I spent our down time and weekends getting rental cars and exploring the region. One day while out exploring another town, we decided to stop in a place called Annecy, which we had heard was kind of neat. That was an understatement! Despite the freezing, foggy January weather, I instantly fell in love. Annecy (on the French side, about 40 minutes from Geneva by car) is like a clean, Swiss/French version of Venice. A gorgeous, tiny, ancient town on canals, bordered by a large turquoise blue lake (Lake Annecy, of course). I have never forgotten about it and vowed to be back.

I had the chance to go back, and to share it with Larry, two years ago on our first anniversary trip. Because of our frenzied schedule on that trip, we rolled into town late one rainy night and only had the morning to spend there the next day, so it was a quick stop. But – Larry fell in love too. He couldn’t believe such a place existed, one that no one apparently knows about. The truth is that a lot of people do know about it (unfortunately) – just not Americans. You will find all sorts of British, German, and French tourists while walking the restaurant and souvenir shop-filled streets.

So – we made a point to go back on this trip. It wasn’t hard to work it into the schedule. About halfway between where we were staying in Provence and our next destination in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, it was easy to stop for a night. We got into town about 7 pm and headed straight for the old town and dinner at a restaurant we discovered and fell in love with on our last visit. Larry got some unbelievable night shots with his camera and tripod.