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The Alpine town of Talloires has a world-wide
reputation as one of Europe's premier resorts. Situated on scenic Lake
Annecy, Talloires is the home of several reknowned restaurants and hotels,
including including the world-famous Auberge
du Père Bise, the Hôtel
de L'Abbaye, as well as the charming Villa
des Fleurs.
 Founded by a community of Benedictine
monks who placed their monastery by the bay in the late Ninth
Century, Talloires was a peaceful agricultural community until
the Twentieth Century, when it became a vacation resort. Often
considered to be one of the most beautiful sites in the world,
the small town of Talloires has a large number of fine restaurants
and hotels, and can proudly claim to have more Michelin restaurant
and hotel stars per capita than any other community
in the world. The landscapes have somehow kept their original
purity, and the ever-changing light turns the mountains and the
lake into a scene of rare beauty which has inspired numerous
painters.
 It is in Talloires that the painter Suzanne
Lansé was born in the final years of the Nineteenth Century.
She sought throughout her career to seize the changing blue colours
of the light, and produced hundreds of canvases now exhibited in over
one hundred countries. A student of the great master Albert Besnard
in the years after World War I, she knew all of the "greats"
of the time, and developed an individual technique and style particularly
well suited to her work. She would climb the mountains on foot, often
in the snow, and work quickly, before the paints could freeze. She used
the palette knife, as the brush could not be used in the cold. In the
final years of her life, her quest for the light had a more spiritual
focus. Mademoiselle Lansé passed away in January 2002, having
lived in the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-First centuries!
 The fine
landscapes can be admired from well-equipped camping grounds
both above town and by the lake on the neighboring peninsula
of Angon. The town, which has resisted urban development, has
retained its old-world charm and easy pace. There is ample parking
in the central lot (on the site of an old sawmill), and the water's
edge is now free of traffic noise and pollution. Rowboats and
pedal boats may be rented, and a guarded beach is open to all.
Those who would like to gaze
upon the bay from the other side of the lake can stop at the
Hôtel du Lac
in the town of Duingt, which is reputed
to be one of the most beautiful villages in France. Its medieval
houses and streets are among the loveliest in the region.
Latest update February 03, 2002
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