Back in Annecy .... Again

  My first posting on this trip was from Annecy, entitiled: Back in Annecy, France. I didn't expect to be back so soon but here we are, probably for 3 days.  At some point I still hope to post some photos from our week in the Jura, but for now I'll just continue from the last post.

        On Monday, the morning that we were supposed to fly home from the Geneva airport, we extended our car rental and our stay at La Bonne Auberge for one day, and then drove to the nearby village of Challex.  We had read that the only vineyards in the entire area were in and around Challex, on the Swiss border, and I knew absolutley nothing about the wines of the region. In Challex we saw a sign for Domane de Mucelle, and although the owner/winemaker normally only opens his doors to visitors from 5-6 p.m., he said he would be happy to open his tasting room for us.  He said there were a few other grape growers in the village, but he was the only one who bottled and sold wine.  We tasted a couple of whites -- a 100% Chasselas and a 100% Pinot Gris – and a few reds (Gamay and Pinot Noir are the rd grapes grown here).  There are no AOC wines in the area; all of these wines were designated Vin de Pays de l’Ain (the Ain is the department we were in).  I was amazed at how good the wines were, and we bought a Gamay, a Pinot Gris, and a sparkling Chasselas.  We had bought some wine glasses at a winery the week before, and having managed to secure a corkscrew and a cheese knife, we enjoyed these wines over the next couple of days, along with a lot more cheese.

    That afternoon we drove through the Jura mountains and visited some small villages in the valley on the other side.

    That night I managed to book a hotel in Annecy over the Inernet, so on Tuesday we returned our car at the Geneva airport and took a bus to Annecy, where our trip had started exactly 3 weeks before.  The hotel, while modest, was right in the center of the old part of Annecy, and we had amazing views of the canal below, as well the chateau and church high above the town.  These photos were all taken from our room: