The Abbaye where we are now has no internet access, so I am typing this now to attach to the blog later.

We were up early this morning to make our way out of Paris to Abbaye de Talloires. Marc went out to get some breakfast goodies and to get a cab to come back to the apartment, take us two blocks away with our luggage to return the key and then to Gare de Lyon. We caught a 9:50 train to Annecy. The train ride was about 4 hours and stopped in Lyon at about the two hour mark. Marc slept most of the way and the girls played and watched I Love Lucy videos. I mostly looked out the window at the small towns passing by. We arrived in the Alps at about 1:45 and somehow made our way out of the train station (not as easy as it sounds) and tried to locate Hertz car rental. We finally asked someone and saw it across the street. When we got to the office there was a sign that the office is closed from 12-1:30 but it now was almost 2pm and still no one there. Then we noticed a note on the door that said “we will return in 5 minutes”….in french, of course. We waited. And waited. I took Emily around the corner to find some lunch (she didn’t like the fare offered in the train café). We found a small place with some pizzas and chose the one without anchovies, but when we were walking back and took a bite we realized that under the cheese there was ground beef…oh well, in the trash.
The Hertz woman finally back and we got the car. No GPS available and there are no “non smoking cars” Marc was told that, “this is not America, we are still allowed to smoke in our cars”. We were OK with the lack of GPS (little did we know at that time). The woman pulled the car around and we tried to put the luggage in the trunk, but she nor Marc couldn’t figure out how to open it up. We tried everything, the key remote, looked inside the car and finally she was calling the main office, when I looked in the manual in the glove compartment and somehow in French read that there was a small button disguised in a logo on the side of the trunk. Push it and the trunk pops open.

The town is a bit seedy. Small and with a lot of vacationers on the lake. Reminds me of Oxnard or Carpenteria or some other small CA town. There are a lot of direction signs but an insufficient number of street signs.

All we have is a quasi map from the Hertz people (just the surrounding streets around the office) and a map off the web from Michelin website. The Hertz office is all out of maps. But we figure, we will just head for the lake. We start off and it doesn’t take long for us to get completely lost and on roads not mentioned on either map we have. We also end up going down a street he wrong way and did I mention that the car is a manual shift? It’s been awhile for Marc, but it comes right back. We end up going in a BIG circle but finally see some signs for Le Lac and just follow them…except then we turn right instead of left and we want to go left to go to the east side of the lake. Shouldn’t be be problem, just pull into a driveway and turn around. We do that but then Marc can’t put the car in reverse. We sit there for about 10 minutes (and it felt like an hour) trying to get the Peugot’s stick shift into reverse. The notation on the stick shift seems to indicate upward is reverse, but every time we try that the car just goes forward again, so now we are inching into traffic with each attempt. Finally I try something, pull the stick shift up and move it forward. It works! We can back up and turn around, back the right way. So now we are on our way around the lake to Talloires. It should be about a 20 minute trip, but the roads are crowded with bicycles and walkers with sticks. We go slowly around the lake and stop in Menthon St. Bernard (where are the dogs?) for a rest and a picnic. We pick up crackers, cheese (roblechon, but we had to buy half the wheel), couscous salad, figs and raspberries and find a bench in this sweet town for our picnic (see attached pictures). We get back in the car for what now should really be about 5 minutes (fortunately we can back up out of our parking space). The trip takes us about 45 minutes because although our map seems clear, there are no road signs anywhere and we keep going in circles. I feel like I am in some sort of a Marx brothers movie. FINALLY we go a different way and end up here at the Abbaye de Tallories. This is a special place. It is a converted monastery. We have two attached rooms with one bathroom. The girls have two tiny twin beds (low to the ground) and I can picture two nuns sleeping in them. The floors are all stone and the ceilings high and beamed. There are echos. Outside we are on the lake and the hotel has a lovely dock with chairs and umbrellas. It is 6pm when we leave the room to explore around. Sarah is determined to swim in the lake, so she does (see photos). There are boats, water skiing and in the air, many hang gliders (very high, in the clouds)…we all decide that is NOT for us.

After our (that’s the royal our) swim and relaxing on the deck we go back to our room to shower and dress for dinner. We have reservations (Sarah is happy). There is just one seating and we get there at 8:45 for what is to be a very elegant meal. The service is great and we have two amuse bouches, the first of which is a wooden platter with three different items and the next is a mini cheese fondue for each of us. The decisions are difficult. They do have a children’s menu, which at first glance seems great (three courses, all for only 20 EUROS!)…but when we inquire, the main course is assorted charcuterie. No thanks. This makes Sarah happy since she was not too keen on a children’s menu to begin with. So here’s the damage:
Sarah: tomatoes three ways (too hard to explain) and for her main course she had a char on spinach with hazelnuts and a side of gnocchi (that’s why she ordered it).
Em: Smoked Salmon with tiny (and I mean the cutest, tiny pancakes) with some caviar and then the three tomato dish for her main course.
Deb: a wonderful Bar (sea bass) and I shared Em’s smoked salmon for first course.
Marc: Guinea hen and he shared Sarah’s tomato first course.
Dessert is almost too difficult to explain, so we took photos. But the highlight was Marc’s. For some reason (we are still not sure what possessed him) he ordered something called “Flower Power”. Not sure what it all involved, but it was very colorful and pretty. He moved the plate in front of me. After dessert they brought out a plate of small French macaroons and we had coffee. Marc and I washed all this down with some champagne and Chassagne Montrachet (sp?). Sarah and Marc played a game of chess in the “common room” and Em and I came up to the room. We are determined to get up early so we can make the most of our day here tomorrow.