Annecy

There was a settlement at the lake's outflow in Roman times, but the town grew from the 10th century as the court of the counts of Geneva, whose castle still stands above the old town. It passed to the counts of Savoy in 1401 and became the seat of the Genevois-Nemours branch of the dynasty, which lasted until 1659. When Geneva turned Calvinist, the bishop of Geneva moved here, and in 1535 the bishopric was transferred to Annecy, making it a centre of the Counter-Reformation. Francis de Sales served as bishop from 1602 to 1622, and the young Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent time in the town.

During the French Revolution Savoy was conquered by France and Annecy attached to the department of Mont Blanc, with its capital at Chambéry; the diocese was suppressed in 1801. Restored to the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1815, the town used the water power of the Thiou for mills making silk, linen and cotton goods, glass, cutlery and paper, and it became French with Savoy in 1860.

In the Second World War the Allies bombed the town three times, aiming at its ball-bearing factory, and it was freed by the Resistance fighters of the Glières maquis. The animation festival began in 1960 and the Fête du Lac in 1965, and tourism grew around the lake and the nearby ski resorts. A magnitude 5.25 earthquake centred on Épagny damaged buildings in 1996. In 2017 Annecy merged with five neighbouring communes, among them Annecy-le-Vieux, Cran-Gevrier and Seynod.

The town has been called the "Pearl of the French Alps", a phrase from the geographer Raoul Blanchard, and, for its canals and the Thiou running between the houses, the "Venice of the Alps". The image is carefully kept: flowers along the canals, the restored castle with its museum, the Palais de l'Isle on its island and a lakeshore of lawns and promenades.

Animation is Annecy's international calling card. Its film festival, created in 1960 and annual since 1998, is one of the oldest festivals in France, and each June it fills the Bonlieu cultural centre and the town with studios, students and film lovers, attracting about 100,000 visitors; a Cité internationale du cinéma is planned for the former national stud farm. The Fête du Lac draws as many people on the first weekend of August, when fireworks are set off over the water.

Religion has left a strong mark — Francis de Sales remains the town's best-known figure — and so has Savoy, whose separate history and cheese-based cooking are a matter of pride. Life is lived outdoors: swimming, rowing, sailing and wakeboarding on the lake, cycling round it, and skiing in the nearby resorts. The Tour de France has started stages here, among them in 2009 and 2018.

The old commune of Annecy had about 50,000 people for decades, hemmed in by the lake and the protected Semnoz mountain; the 2017 merger raised the city's population to about 128,000, and the urban area had about 187,000 inhabitants in 2023. Most people live in the former communes around the old centre, in Annecy-le-Vieux, Seynod, Cran-Gevrier, Meythet and Pringy.

The economy mixes tourism with a strong industrial base: the bearing maker NTN-SNR, Salomon, Mavic, Fusalp, the cheese company Entremont and Dassault Aviation all have headquarters or major sites here, and Ubisoft has a studio. Former industrial land is being rebuilt: an eco-district of 675 homes is rising on part of the old SNR works, and the 19th-century stud farm is being turned into a public space with a park and a food hall.

The rhythm follows the seasons. Summer brings crowds to the old town and the beaches, while autumn and winter return the town to its residents, who use the Sibra buses, the cycle paths along the lake and the seven markets, the oldest of them held on Tuesday mornings since the 12th century.

Annecy eats the food of Savoy. Reblochon, a soft, washed-rind cheese made from raw cow's milk, was first made in the Thônes and Arly valleys of the Aravis massif, and Thônes remains the centre of production; it is the key to tartiflette, a dish of potatoes, Reblochon, lardons and onions, sometimes with a splash of white wine, inspired by an older gratin called péla and often eaten after a day's skiing. Fondue, melted cheese and wine in a communal pot into which bread is dipped on long forks, is the other great cheese dish.

Diots, Savoy pork and vegetable sausages, are most often boiled in white wine with garlic and onions and served with polenta or crozets, small square flat pasta of buckwheat or wheat. The nearby Bauges mountains make Tome des Bauges, a tomme cheese.

The markets are the best place to find these products: food stalls fill the old town on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday mornings, and producers sell their own goods on Sunday mornings in the Novel-Teppes district. In the evenings the canal-side restaurants of the old town serve Savoyard dishes to visitors and locals alike.