Carnaval Vénitien d'Annency 2013

Mlle Vénise 2013

Chères amies et chers amis,

I have the most loving, patient, and accommodating husband. I’m not saying I don’t catch his disbelieving blinks and his subtle head shakes when I occasionally suggest what might be considered a harebrained idea. But he definitely proved his love this weekend.

As I watched les prévisions météorologiques (weather report) this past Friday morning, I was counting on his love, patience, and accommodation to still be on board to go to le Carnaval Vénitien d’Annecy the next day. Cold temperatures and snow were in the forecast, and I know how much he loves making his way through crowds, especially when there is snow or subfreezing temperatures.

I went to la gare on Friday to buy our train tickets for the trip, and when I first got there I thought a Powerball drawing was going on because of all the eyes fixed on the overhead screens. No,  je me suis trompée (I was wrong), it was just that I had forgotten that the two-week school winter vacation was starting the next day, and everybody and their brother’s skis were headed for the slopes and points away from Grenoble par train. This did not bode well for the train traffic the next day. I hoped that families leaving the following day would be using their cars to get to the slopes and would not be clogging the trains on Saturday. 

On Saturday morning, I peeked out the curtains to check the weather. No snow yet. I was still a little worried since Annecy is north of Grenoble and usually has more snow. And lately, Grenoble has been blessed with more of the white stuff than my Carolina bones care for. But the train tickets were bought and I was raring to go. I packed some train munchies, and we tucked our heads against the cold wind in the direction of the gare.

Like the day before, the scene at the gare was full of rolling suitcases, skis and snowboards, and warmly dressed voyageurs (travelers). Our train would be leaving on voie A (track A), and we stationed ourselves near the automatic doors to await the dash to find seats when the train arrived. Steve spotted a work colleague who comes from America, and we squeezed through the crowd to say hello. Greg and his wife, Leslie, and their two young daughters, Rose and Tiger Lily, were also going to Annecy for Carnival. I sensed the 4- and 5-year-old girls were thrilled just to be traveling on the train, and I guessed they would be thrilled with what awaited them in Annecy.

The train pulled into the station as we spoke, and we moved with the crowd to board it. The cars were filled and we were off. A mere hour and forty-five minutes later, we were in Annecy. We had visited the quaint ville before (see Meetyou in the Savoie: Heading to Annecy), and we were a little familiar with the lay of the land. It wasn’t long before we came upon the first of the myriad of masked, costumed players wandering the rues.

You may not know that Annecy is known as the Venice of the Alps because of the channels that run through the ville. Playing on this theme, the Association Rencontres Italie-Annecy (ARIA) has organized a carnival there for the past 17 years. While we walked around the town, I took my gloves off more times than I can count to snap pictures of those in elaborate costumes, each one seemingly more beautiful than the last. Most of the participants have made their costumes themselves, and they usually also show them off in the Venice (Italy) Carnival. As you can see in the slide show below, Steve and I took beaucoup de photos, but these are just what my camera (and our frozen fingers) could stand. We captured a fraction of the more than 350 participants!

All the picture-taking drove us inside for a warm, delicious lunch at a small Asian restaurant, and later, du thé et du chocolat chaud (tea and hot chocolate) with traditional beignets (kind of doughnut covered in sugar) at a popular café.

The evening train ride back to Grenoble was filled with other tired Annecy day-trippers, and as we pulled into the station, we saw that we had surprisingly dodged the snow that had accumulated in the Grenoble streets and walks during our absence.  By traveling north, we had instead enjoyed, as the ARIA brochure says, “la chaleur de notre sœur latine!”*

*“The warmth of our latin (Italian) sister!”

A bientôt,

Maureen

You can click on any picture in the slide show to see it up close.