Annecy & Le Grand Bornand

After more and more bad surprises during the last couple of months, I feel a lot safer with the last week of holidays of the year, as I will be in France, so nothing worrying could happen to me. Except that things are going a lot more out of control than anything I have faced since April...

The reason why I am here is the biathlon World Cup which will take place in Le Grand Bornand during the last 4 days of the week. It was obvious that it would be extremely popular, so I booked my accommodation more than 6 months ago, in order to secure a nice little appartment about 10km away from where the races will take place. Five days before, I send a message to the owner, in order to ask if we can meet at 18:00 to get the keys. No news... On the following day, I send another message, but still no answer. On Monday evening, I eventually manage to reach him, and he sounds extremely surprised: he left the area months ago, and does not rent his appartment any longer, he thought he had cancelled all the reservations. No, he hasn't... So I am going to spend hours finding a back up plan, and will end up with 3 different accommodations in Annecy (because nothing was available for the whole stay), about 50km from the stadium. The good news is that it will give me a chance to enjoy Annecy and its Christmas market every day until next Monday.

 

 

 

From Thursday morning, I am supposed to have a rental car that I also booked months ago, chosing "Annecy downtown" on the website. On Wednesday afternoon, when I check exactly where the agency is, I realize that it is neither in Annecy nor downtown, but 13km awat from the center of Annecy, in the middle of nowhere (in the countryside, behind a highway), with no public transportation to get there. So, basically, in order to get your rental car, you need a car...

When I eventually manage to get there, the staff tells me that their cars are not equipped with winter tyres "because it is too expensive". Except that it has been snowing every day for one month in the area. So I am going to spend 4 days praying while driving, with a car that will need about 20m to stop even when I drive at less than 10km/h...

But the best surprise with the car will appear on Thursday evening, when I retrieve it after the race: the window panes are covered with ice, which makes sense in December, so I look for the small plastic device which can normally be found in every car to remove the ice, and can't find any. It seems that it is also too expensive for them (I think it costs about 2 euros...). So I will have to wait half an hour in the car, with heating at its maximum, in order to make the ice melt.

Apart from all of this, it was a great competition week, with an incredible atmosphere, 2 podiums and one victory for Martin Fourcade, the first World Cup podium ever for Antonin Guigonnat, and the first World Cup victory for Justine Braisaz, plus a very nice week for Simon Desthieux. :)))