Forget Paris: This French Lake City Has It All

If Limoges was the quiet, attainable corner of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Annecy is the opposite end of the country and the opposite end of the price tag. Tucked into the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in the Haute-Savoie department, just 35 minutes from the Swiss border at Geneva, this is the city most people have already seen on a postcard. The so-called Venice of the Alps.

A fairytale at the foot of the Alps

About 126,000 people live in Annecy itself, with another 8,000 students, and the greater metro area pushes closer to 211,000. The lake, Lac d'Annecy, is one of the cleanest in Europe and is genuinely the centerpiece of daily life here. Pastel houses lean over the canals of the Vieille Ville. The Pont des Amours, the Bridge of Lovers, arches across the water (locals say couples who kiss on it stay together forever). And a roughly 20-mile bike path wraps the entire shoreline.

Why Annecy is a different number than Limoges

The price tag here is not Limoges'. Annecy's economy is pulled upward by Swiss frontaliers, French residents who cross the border to work in Geneva for Swiss salaries. That changes the math on rent, on groceries, on dinner out, on everything. We give the cost teaser this week and go deep on housing, salaries, and the guarantor system in next week's Part 2.

The unexpected reveal

There is also one event Annecy hosts every June that most expats have no idea about, until they're suddenly drinking rosé next to a Pixar animator. It is the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the largest and most prestigious in the world. The full reveal is at the end of the video.

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À bientôt!

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📸 Photo credits:

Photo 1 Flickr, “Le lac d’Annecy” by Noan Paris-Paccard, CC BY-SA 2.0

Photo 2 Flickr, Annecy (Haute-Savoie) - Canal du Vassé et pont des Amours, CC BY-SA 2.0 by Patrick

Photo 3 Flickr, Place Sainte Claire, the Old Town, Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France, 18 June 2009. CC BY-SA 2.0 by Hugh Llewelyn

Photo 4 Flickr, Festival du Film d'Animation 2018 @ Bonlieu @ Annecy, CC BY 2.0 Guilhem Vellut