We met up with Shae-Linn’s friend Hugo today. They met when they were both visiting Ottawa and he was the one who put Annecy on our radar. Today was the “retour des aplages” festival where they bring cows and sheep and donkeys back from where they were grazing in the mountains in preparation for winter. Hugo had actually never heard of it before even though it happens every year, so it was a first for all of us. Before we went to the parade, we got some super yummy brunch and met up with a friend of Hugo’s named Axelle. Then Hugo showed us around Annecy a little bit (there’s really only a little to see) and we found a spot to watch the parade come through.

The parade consisted of some animals, lots of traditional dress of the nearby regions, some dancing, some music, and many many Cow bells. We were sort of expecting more animals than we saw, but the crowd started to disperse and we waited and non came so we left (we found out later that the animals came like an hour after the parade so we missed them).

We wandered through the old town a little bit since there were lots of vendors set up for the festival, and we got some ice cream from a place that uses the milk from the cows we saw today to make it. We saw the rest of the town, sat down in a cafe for a chat and called it a day. It’s been pretty wet and cold here so far, so we were happy to warm up in our hostel.