Annecy In All It's Beauty

    I think it is safe to say that Annecy is the most gorgeous place I have ever been to in my WHOLE life.Yes, I know I'm only 19, but I have visited many, many countries and cities in my lifetime. On Wednesday, the 17th of July, I departed on my University's weekly trips program, not knowing that I was about to have the best day I have had on this study abroad. Not only is Annecy absolutely surreal in beauty, but the people and the culture in the city is just amazing and unique to itself. 

    Annecy is a small city located south of Geneva, in France. It is about two hours by bus from Lyon, but only about half an hour away from Geneva. It was quite tempting, the thought of "jumping the border" and visiting Geneva for a few hours, but I was perfectly content in the beauty that was in Annecy. The architecture of the city is much like what you would find in Eastern Europe or probably Geneva. I was actually surprised to see how different it was to the other french cities that I have seen. 

    We were there between 11AM and 5PM. During the majority of that time, I was by le lac, the rest of the time I was eating (as one does after swimming for hours) and walking around the cute city. I could not get enough of how beautiful and immaculate this city is. I have never in my life experienced swimming in a gorgeous lake with the Alpes just casually in my background and swans and ducks swimming around me. I am most DEFINITELY returning to this place.

The is Le Lac d'Annecy with the Alps clearly in the background.

I did not have enough time to explore le ville d'Annecy parce que I wanted to swim for as long as possible!

This picture was taken before the sun came out. The Alps were even more visible when the soleil was shinning brightly.

What I would do to live in a city like this...

You'd be surprised at how many of these signs there were everywhere, hahahaha. I won't lie, it was quite tempting to attempt diving in, but no sane person would actually do it...at least I hope not!

The bridge of loves :). 

Of course we had to take a number of pictures every 10 steps or so: but the view...

Later in the day, this was the spot where multiple dogs and children played since the water was quite shallow. It was not permitted to swim here though due to the boats, I believe.

The apartments by the lake looked SO luxurious!

Everything in Annecy is just so green and vibrant-looking.

The water was so clear and cool...I did NOT want to get out, haha. Fortunately other students came in waves, so I was never really alone in the water.

You could rent these boats or rent paddle boats out into the open lake for a few minutes. Since I'm a poor college student, I obviously did not rent these hahahaha.

There were so many tourists and so many different people offering boat rides...not for free obviously!

The Aples are just absolutely breath-taking, don't you think?

I still can't even believe I was able to see and experience this in my lifetime...