Sunday Strolls, Vol. 6: Annecy, France
Sunday Strolls is an Attic series in which our Editors offer you a glimpse into their everyday lives by taking you around some of the cities they love. In this special sixth edition, Olivia Gündüz-Willemin takes Raquel Reyes and Rory Mara around Annecy, an Alpine city in the south of France.
“Annecy is so blue that it tints the air and makes you feel as if you were living inside an aquarium - It is as peaceful inside its scalloped mountains as a soup-ladel [sic] full of the sky and reminds me of N. Carolina.”
This time last year, on the occasion of Olivia’s wedding, we all found ourselves together in Geneva. Planning our time months earlier, the surrounding regions were heavily discussed... Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Annecy, more. Annecy, France is conveniently a stone’s throw away from Geneva, a mere hour or so by land, and boasts appealing nomenclatures such as “the pearl of the French Alps,” and “the Venice of France.” A literal fairy tale town, Annecy sits along the Thiou River and contains its own castles, cathedrals, canals, bistros built into caves, probably more. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald spent two of the happiest weeks of their lives there in the summer of 1931, according to Zelda’s diaries in The Romantic Egoists. With nothing else to do one sleepy Wednesday, we jumped at the chance to see it for ourselves.
Arriving early one morning at the end of August in the summer of 2018, however, we found to absolutely no surprise that most buildings and museums were closed, and so proceeded to wander the town as they might have, casually stopping at every bridge and flower pot arrangement to take pictures along with every other unassuming tourist. We admired the canals, enjoyed some much missed French food, and eventually made our way to that epic lake with its aquarium blue water so clear you could see to the bottom and its surrounding mountains wondrous enough to make anybody want to drop everything and try to learn how to ski finally.
As our day wound down, we switched to classic Attic member mode; stopping at coffee shops for espresso and reading breaks, small shops for postcards, and the only open boulangerie we could find for road snacks and loaves of bread to have for breakfast the next day before finally making our way home. Zelda said she would never return, for fear of tainting such happiness, but we can’t wait to go back.
Words by Raquel Reyes, photos by Olivia Gündüz-Willemin.
Olivia Gündüz-Willemin is Editor-in-Chief of The Attic on Eighth. She is dedicated to reading her way through the world and trying to stay as calm as possible.
Raquel Reyes is Creative Director at The Attic on Eighth. She enjoys styling photo shoots, dramatic hair accessories, and old fashioned cocktails.
Rory Mara is Beauty Editor at The Attic of Eighth. She loves the ballet, books, beheadings, and alliteration.
We have provided links to the books mentioned through our independent online affiliate, Wordery. If you'd like to support a local bookstore in your area, you may also support us through IndieBound – a community of independent local bookstores. Any purchase made through these links may earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
In a personal essay, Elizabeth Slabaugh visits the disappointments and realization of tempered dreams around traveling to Oxford after not being able to spend a semester at the university due to chronic illness.