Lac d'Annecy, Lac du Bourget & Chambéry: Alpine Lakes Guide
Beyond the high peaks, the French Alps hide turquoise lakes, a royal abbey, and some of France's finest cheese markets. Here's how to explore the Savoyard lowlands from Annecy to Chambéry.
We drove south out of Chamonix on 15 August 2022 with five days left on our Alps road trip and two lakes to cover: Lac du Bourget first, Lac d'Annecy next, then a half-day in Chambéry before the long haul home. Our kids (then 8 and 13) were three weeks into a high-altitude summer — Aiguille du Midi, paragliding landings in Passy, too many chairlifts — and ready for a different kind of Alps: water instead of rock, markets instead of mountain huts.
What we mapped out as a wind-down turned into one of the denser sections of the trip: a drone flight over the largest natural lake in France; a Gothic abbey on a promontory that reads like a stone ship from 250 metres up; a 1,650-metre hike with the whole of Lac d'Annecy spread out below; and a Chambéry market where the Beaufort alone justifies a detour. This is the loop we actually drove, with the times we clocked and the stops that turned out to matter.
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Lac du Bourget: France's Largest Natural Lake
Lac du Bourget runs 18 kilometres north-south and covers 44 km² — the largest natural lake entirely within France, held in a trough between the Chartreuse massif (west) and the Bauges (east). Driving the eastern shore from Aix-les-Bains you're on the D991 for the whole stretch; the western shore (La Chambotte, Hautecombe) requires a ferry or the long way round via the Chat tunnel. It reads quieter than Annecy because there's no flagship old town — Aix-les-Bains is a thermal spa resort, not a historic centre.
We put the drone up in the middle of the afternoon on Monday 15 August from a turnout above the western shore. The altitude on the flight log reads 1423 m elevation above sea level — the Bauges rises fast above the lake, and the aerial perspective lifts everything into one frame: the full length of the lake, the Dent du Chat ridge to the west, the reeds and beach strips of the eastern shore. If you want the water-level version, the Bateaux du Bourget boats run loops from Aix-les-Bains to Hautecombe in summer (about €16/adult); or drive to the public beach at Conjux on the eastern shore for a quieter swim.
Abbaye de Hautecombe: A Royal Resting Place
The Abbaye royale de Hautecombe sits on a wooded headland jutting south into Lac du Bourget from the western shore — access is either by the narrow D914 (15 minutes of switchbacks from the Chat tunnel) or by the summer ferry from Aix-les-Bains. The abbey is Cistercian, founded 1139, and housed the tombs of the House of Savoy for seven centuries until the monarchy ended in 1946. The current interior is not original Romanesque — it's a 19th-century neo-Gothic rebuild commissioned by Carlo Felice of Sardinia after the Revolution trashed the first version.
We were inside at 17:26 — the last half-hour of afternoon visits (the abbey closes the nave to visitors around 18:00 year-round; check the Communauté du Chemin Neuf schedule before you drive out). The nave holds about forty royal tombs, grouped in the transepts; the ribbed vaulting is painted rather than exposed stone, which shocks you if you're coming from a more austere Cistercian baseline. A deep red carpet runs the central aisle. Entry is free but donation-suggested (€3 at the tronc).
We flew the drone again at 17:56, this time with the abbey in frame. The flight altitude (293 m above launch on the flight log) puts the bird's-eye right at the level of the abbey towers, and the aspect is what the article title underselling calls a stone ship: a long white mass on a wooded promontory, with the lake wrapping it on three sides and the evening light cutting between cloud layers. It's an entirely different object from above — you suddenly understand why this spot was chosen over any other on the lake.
Evening by the Lake
We pulled off in the early evening at a lakeside restaurant with wooden decks on stilts above the reeds — the kind of place that has no sign on the road and five tables on a pontoon. A glass of Roussette de Savoie cost €5.50; a shared assiette savoyarde was €22. The light on the lake dropped through reds into a long blue twilight (sunset in mid-August is around the early evening here), and we left an hour later for the 45-minute drive back to our rental.
Hiking Above Lac d'Annecy
Lac d'Annecy gets called the cleanest lake in Europe — the reality is that since the early-1970s collector sewer ring around the lake, phosphate runoff has been near-zero, and water clarity regularly clocks 8-10 metres on the Secchi disc. You see it from altitude and the turquoise reads less "lake" than "tropical lagoon." The 42-kilometre lakeside cycle path (Voie Verte + Piste de la Rive Ouest) lets you loop the whole thing in a day without a single major road crossing; rentals run from about €15/day in Annecy.
On Tuesday 16 August we drove to the Col de la Forclaz trailhead (1,157 m) and climbed the Dents de Lanfon / Tournette approach. in the mid-afternoon we were at 1,650 metres with the full length of Lac d'Annecy laid out below — Duingt's wooded peninsula jutting halfway across, Talloires tucked in the eastern bay, the Semnoz forming the western wall. The trail climbs 500 m in under two kilometres once you're past the forest section; our 8-year-old did it in three hours with two yoghurt-pot breaks.
Descent back via the same ridge was slower — loose scree until 1,400 m, then forest. by the late afternoon we were halfway down, the lake turning gold between the tree trunks. We crossed a single hiker going up with the late sun behind him; you don't see many photographs that size the hiker properly against the mountain, and that's the one we kept.
Golden Hour Drone Flight
We put the drone up at 18:39 that evening from a ridge above Talloires — flight altitude 764 m on the flight log, about 40 minutes before sunset. The lake turned into a single sheet of orange-gold with Duingt's wooded peninsula a perfect silhouette cutting across the middle. Three flights in twenty minutes, one to the north toward the main basin, one south toward Doussard, one low over the village of Talloires; the latter caught the Tournette massif in the background with late-sun on its upper cliffs.
Annecy's Old Town: Savoyard Charm at Its Best
Annecy itself is a compact town — you can walk the old core in 40 minutes, and the lakeside park runs another 20 minutes south from the Pont des Amours. The vieille ville wraps two canal loops of the Thiou (the river that drains the lake to the Fier), with five bridges inside 300 metres. In peak August (we were there on the 18th) the main pedestrian streets thicken to shoulder-to-shoulder by 11:00 and stay that way until 19:00 — arrive early or after dinner if you want photographs without crowds.
We wandered through from 15:27 on Thursday 18 August — Café de la Place on the pastel-fronted square, then down the Rue Sainte-Claire past Horlogerie Pte Molliex (the painted shopfront signage dates to the 1920s), an L'Occitane boutique squeezed into a medieval building, and a small pharmacy with its original green cross still working. We ended at 17:31 near the Pont des Amours with a late afternoon gelato — Glaces des Alpes serves a crème de Savoie that's roughly what dairy would taste like if everything went right.
For families, the compactness is the whole draw: you can park once (the Hôtel de Ville underground lot at €2.50/hr was the easiest in high season) and not need the car again until you leave. Our kids at 8 and 13 handled six hours of walking without complaint because there was a gelato stop every forty minutes and the 12th-century Palais de l'Isle — the stone "ship" in the middle of the Thiou — is one of those landmarks that photographs itself from every angle.
Chambéry: The Savoyard Capital
Friday 19 August was the drive-home day and Chambéry was our last stop — 40 minutes south of Annecy on the A41, two hours and fifteen minutes then to Lyon and eventually home. We budgeted three hours (arrival 12:45, departure 16:00) and came within ten minutes of overrunning: there's more to Chambéry than the guides give it.
The Elephant Fountain
The Fontaine des Éléphants (1838) sits at the intersection of Boulevard de la Colonne and Rue de Boigne — four bronze elephants at the base supporting a 19-metre column topped by the Comte de Boigne himself. De Boigne ran a cavalry regiment for the Maratha Empire for twenty years, returned to his home town in 1802 one of the richest men in Europe, and gave Chambéry a hospital, an orphanage, and the roads around this square (which still carry his name). The local nickname for the fountain, "les quatre sans-culs" — the four bums-less ones — captures the Savoyard tone: the elephants' hindquarters are embedded in the base, so only the fronts are visible.
Les Halles: A Cheese Lover's Paradise
We were inside Les Halles at 12:59 on Friday 19 August — the covered market sits behind the Théâtre Charles-Dullin and runs Tuesday–Sunday mornings plus Friday afternoon. The Laiterie des Marches counter, mid-aisle, carries roughly thirty Savoyard cheeses; we came away with a 300 g wedge of summer Beaufort (€9.60 at €32/kg), a small Reblochon (€6), and a vacuum-packed Tomme de Savoie for the drive home (€5.50). The vendor sliced tastings for both kids without asking.
Les Halles was rebuilt in 2017 — the space feels modern (glass roof, polished concrete floor) which takes some getting used to if you're expecting a 19th-century iron-frame hall. Sections: dairy and cheese anchor the centre, charcuterie runs the east wall, baker and wine traders along the north, fruit and veg stalls on the south. Picnic-ready: a baker at the north entrance sells the local diot-style flat bread for €3 a pair.
Strolling the Historic Centre
We crossed the Place du Théâtre around midday and then the Place Saint-Léger, the old town's spine — a narrow pedestrian rectangle with 18th-century Sardinian-era façades, about twenty cafés running down both sides, and the Savoyard mountains visible at the south end. Our 8-year-old overshot us through the fountain at the centre; my wife and I followed the 13-year-old into a bookshop called La Libraire Garin that carries a genuinely impressive Alps section (IGN maps, Savoyard cookbooks, a local-author wall).
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Practical Information
How to Get There
Real drive times we clocked in August 2022: Chamonix → Annecy 1h05 via A40+A41 (tolls ~€12); Annecy → Aix-les-Bains/Bourget 45 minutes via A41 (€4.50); Aix-les-Bains → Hautecombe 35 minutes via the D914; Annecy → Chambéry 40 minutes on A41 (€3.20). A two-day loop is tight; three days gives you time for one hike and one ferry crossing.
By train, Chambéry is a TGV stop (three hours from Paris), and Annecy is reachable via regional trains from Chambéry in about forty minutes.
Lac d'Annecy is 50 km south of Geneva (GVA), with the Bourget and Chambéry lakes another 40 km further — Geneva is the easiest international gateway by far, with direct flights from across Europe and the US. Lyon (LYS) is 1.5 hours from Annecy and often cheaper for southern European routes.
Best Time to Visit
Summer (mid-June to mid-September) is the obvious season — lake water hits 23°C by mid-August, boats run, every terrace is open. Shoulder months (May, September) are better for hiking: Tournette's final section is usually snow-free by late May and stays accessible until mid-October. Hautecombe is open year-round but the Aix-les-Bains ferry only runs May–September; off-season access is the D914 from the Chat tunnel.
Budget
What it actually cost us in August 2022 (family of four): rental apartment in Sévrier (south shore of Lac d'Annecy) €135/night off-peak, €185 mid-week in August; a mid-range family dinner on Rue Saint-François Annecy €90; Les Halles picnic-for-four €18; Abbaye de Hautecombe free (donation €3 at the tronc); parking in Annecy old town €2.50/hr; Tournette trailhead free. Total five-day segment ~€1,250 all in, ex-fuel.
More to Explore in France and Beyond
If you enjoyed the alpine lakes and Savoyard culture, these destinations might be next on your list:
FAQ
Q: Is Lac d'Annecy really the cleanest lake in Europe? A: It's one of the cleanest, thanks to strict environmental regulations implemented since the 1960s. The water is safe for swimming, and its clarity is remarkable. Whether it holds the official title depends on how you measure it, but the turquoise colour speaks for itself.
Q: Can you swim in Lac du Bourget? A: Yes, there are several public beaches along the eastern shore. The water is slightly cooler than Lac d'Annecy but perfectly swimmable in summer.
Q: Is the Abbaye de Hautecombe free to visit? A: Yes, the abbey is free and open to the public. A donation is appreciated. You can reach it by car or, more memorably, by a short boat trip from Aix-les-Bains during summer months.
Q: How long do you need in Chambéry? A: Half a day is enough to see the Elephant Fountain, Les Halles market, and the historic centre. If you want to visit the Château des Ducs de Savoie as well, allow a full day.
About the Author
Pierrick Jean drove the Savoie lakes loop (Chamonix → Bourget → Annecy → Chambéry) with his wife and two kids (then 8 and 13) between 15–19 August 2022, as the wind-down of a two-week Alps road trip. Drone flights were made with a DJI Mavic Pro 2, always operated in line-of-sight and outside restricted zones. More about how we build our travel guides on the About page.