Weekend in the Alps!

Last year, our good friend Flore (thanks to whom I actually met Mathilde, so just "good friend" is not really enough, I would say!) turned 40, and Christian decided to organize a surprise party for her (with about 10 months delay, a case of "better late than never" then, I suppose). We naturally accepted the invitation, especially as it would give us the chance to say bye to some of our old England gang, before heading off to Japan.

Unfortunately the turnup wasn't quite as good as I'd have hoped, in the end Nick (who always shows up, bless him!), Nathalie and Patrick (who also usually make it) showed up in addition to us. The initial plan had been to go skiing to Megeve, but due to a less-than promising weather forecast, Christian decided to organize the party at La Roche instead.

We arrived pretty late at Friday night, so no partying on the 1st night (getting too old for crazy stuff like that!), but we got up bright n' early on Saturday. After a quick visit at La Roche (which has a pretty charming historic center) to do some shopping, we prepared a nice courgette tartiflette for lunch. Highly unorthodox (a tartiflette without potato, what's that all about!?) , but just as delicious as a classic Savoyard tartiflette!

Since, as mentioned before the weather was too bad for skiing, we set Plan B in motion, which was to have a relaxing afternoon at a spa. And not just any spa, the plan was to head to the famous Les Thermes de Saint Gervais Mont Blanc (famous also for an avalanche that killed a lot of hotel guests). Anyway, Plan B turned out to be pretty much perfect in the end. A spa visit is actually a pretty cool way to hang out, and relax at the same time (there was also a Finnish sauna!). Not the sort of thing me and Mathilde do very often (Japanese onsen being the exception, of course!), but we very much enjoyed the experience!

For the evening, Christian had booked a table at a mad restaurant/night club sort of place. The idea was to have dinner there, and then stay and party all night. Unfortunately, perhaps predictably, things didn't quite work out as planned, as we were so nackered after the dinner than we decided to head back to the house (after all, we had spent so much energy during the day, ahem, resting in a spa!?). We really are old farts - long gone are the days when we could keep it up all day and all night as well!  ;-) Anyway, we had a very nice digestive at the house, and did manage to stay up until midnight I think ;)

On Sunday, we decided to head to Lac Leman, as Lake Geneva is called in France. It's a pretty gorgeous spot, with plenty of lovely little villages to visit, all in splendid scenery. We started in Yvoire, a very picturesque little town, pretty much perfectly located on the lake shore. A very nice place to stroll around.  We had a very nice lunch in a fish restaurant overlooking the lake.

We continued our exploration of Lac Leman at Nernier (I'm not quite sure about this bit, it's a bit of a wild guess, actually, but looking at google maps, I reckon Nernier might've been where we were!), another nice little village to walk around. There were a lot of quotes from writers to be found around the village, not sure whether they actually lived here. Wouldn't have blamed them if they did - this village (whatever it was called!) is a lovely place indeed.

And then, alas, it was time for us to catch our flight at Geneva. A great weekend, great to catch up with everybody again, as alwaays! Merci beaucoup Flore et Christian!