Annecy

15-18 September

For whom the bell tolls

The rain overnight quickly passed over but the mountains remained shrouded in cloud, so it was very lucky that we were at St Gervais yesterday to make the most of the good weather. Our next destination was Camping Les Rives du Lac at Sevrier, 6 km south of Annecy. Having already supported the French economy with our payment for the Mont Blanc Tunnel toll, we opted to travel toll-free. It was a journey of only 49 miles, but Snoopy SatNav predicted it would take 1 hour 40 minutes. This was largely due to the nature of the D1212 between St Gervais and Ugine, which passes through the Gorges de l'Arly. Needless to say the road was very winding and hilly. We only came across one suitable lay-by for a stop, unfortunately on the other side (north side) of the road but that fitted in with a lunch break, and gave the brakes, which were getting hot and starting to smell time to recover.

The site is located by the lake, where swimming is possible and although it is not far from the main road, it's very quiet. We went into Annecy by bus and wandered around the delightful old town, with its narrow streets and floral displays.

Later we chose one of the many restaurants for the menu de jour. Our waiter was a Daniel Craig look-alike and he was a cabaret act in himself as he attended to the thirty or so customers, manoeuvring around the closely-packed tables under the canopy.

Saturday was rained off, but we used the time to plan the next part of the journey, to go to the supermarket and to visit the museum, attached to the Paccard Bell Foundry and located only five minutes walk away. Paccard is one of just three bell foundries in France, has been owned and run by the same family for seven generations and has supplied bells to places all over the world. A film, fortunately also available in English, was very informative, detailing how the bells are made, a complicated and skilled process involving a brick inner core, sand and wax mould and an outer shell to create the mould.  The majority of the process is done manually, including paddling the mix of 78% copper and 22% tin, melted at a temperature of 2200 degrees – not sure if that was Centigrade or Fahrenheit, but either way, very hot! . It looked pretty dangerous to us! Health and Safety???