Anise seed? Antsy? Annecy!

A lot of people have asked us if it’s difficult to work US East Coast hours while living in Europe. It isn’t.

A canal in Annecy

We both typically start our work days by 2pm, which means if we can get to bed before 1am, good things can happen in the morning. A very good thing happened on Monday morning of this week, which was, we dragged ourselves out of bed earlier than usual and drove ~1hr to France. Specifically, to Thônes and Annecy (in the Haute-Savoie).

These large rock outcroppings popped up often while driving in Savoie

How did we pick these random towns? Well, to stick to the theme of this trip (/our lives), we wanted to try reblochon, a raw-milk cheese you can’t buy in the U.S. that is made in that area. I had first heard of this from my late boss, a native of Paris – when RJ and I asked him what he missed most about France, he said “the cheeses – reblochon!”

Cheese on cheese on cheese

This is an interesting cheese – it dates back to the 13th century. It’s name is derived from the practice of doing a second milking for cows (because farmers were taxed based on how much milk was produced, they wouldn’t milk the cow fully on inspection day and would then do a later milking). The second milk apparently is richer, making for some delicious cheese.

We would have loved to visit a farm to buy directly or get a tour, but were lacking time / info / reservations. Instead, we went to a farm co-op that sold a variety of local cheeses, meats, jams, liquors, and more. Neither of us had ever had raw milk (something we were curious about, given all the UHT milk in Switzerland), so we were pretty excited when there was an honest to goodness vending machine dispensing plastic bottles and fresh raw milk! It was delicious – creamy and refreshing.

Some construction but this is the classic shot of Annecy (the Palais de L’Ile)

After loading up on goodies, we went to the nearby town of Annecy for lunch. Little did we realize, this seems to be a hot vacation spot – it has a long lakefront (like Geneva), backed by beautiful mountains (like Geneva), and lots of Venice-like canals (not like Geneva). Even though it is the dead of summer, we had to try some local specialties – Tartiflette and a crozet dish (tiny pasta squares). Both were doused in reblochon and other cheeses – really, it was just a mass of cheese soup. Which made it pretty brutal to stay awake when we started our Monday work day. So maybe working East Coast hours is hard after all…

RJ contemplating the upcoming cheese

So. Much. Cheese.