Activities in Annecy

First of all, discover the treasures of Annecy and its old town, its history, its atmosphere, its events…   Who knows it? The first traces of collective life of the men at the edge of the lake, the “lacustrine villages”, go back to the prehistory, to the Neolithic!   What steps then through the Roman period and the vicus “de Boutae”, then the Middle Ages and the appearance of the name of a large farm, a “villae” “Aniciaca”, at the origin according to some historians of the name of the city and the lake.   Over the centuries, and in particular from the 15th century under the reign of the Savoy-Nemours, Annecy became an administrative, intellectual and religious capital. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Saint-François de Sales and Jean-Jacques Rousseau left their mark on the city.   And in 1860, we became definitively “French” when Savoy was attached to France and in 2010, for the 150th anniversary, important events will illustrate this aspect of our recent history.   Nowadays, Annecy and the lake have kept many traces of this long and complex evolution such as the Palais de l’Ile, built in the 12th century, the castles of the Route des Ducs de Savoie: Annecy, Menthon-Saint-Bernard, Montrottier, Thorens and Clermont.   Today, many exhibition places allow you to learn about our history, our built heritage and our local and regional “culture”: the Palais de l’Ile and its interpretation center (architecture and heritage), the Museum-Castle with its temporary exhibitions and its Regional Observatory of the Alpine Lakes, the Museum and the Paccard bell foundry, the Lake Annecy Ecomuseum, the scientific culture center La Turbine, the permanent exhibition on animated films…