15 Things to Do in Annecy
Map 1 — the town, at walking scale. Every pin here is within about ten minutes’ walk of every other one, which is genuinely the most useful thing to know about Annecy. Savoyard food (#5) is the whole Old Town rather than one address, so it has no pin.
In town, on foot
The historic core is small — smaller than most people expect from the photographs. It is pedestrianised, it is built around the Thiou, and you can walk the whole of it in a morning. Everything in this first group is inside that walk.
1Palais de l’Île
The stone prow in the middle of the Thiou, and the most photographed building in the Alps that isn’t a mountain. It stands on a natural rocky island; the oldest parts are 12th century. It first appears in the record as a prison in 1325, was granted a minting workshop in 1355, became the town’s courthouse in the late 16th century, and went on being a prison until 1864. Listed as a monument historique in 1900. Inside it is a small local-history museum rather than a grand one — adult entry is EUR 4 for most of the year and EUR 5 in July and August, under-12s free, closed on Tuesdays. Photograph it from the Pont Perrière before 09:00, when the bridge is empty and the light is coming down the canal.
2Musée-Château d’Annecy
The castle of the counts of Geneva, up a cobbled ramp behind the Old Town, now the town museum: regional history, alpine art, and a courtyard with the best free view back over the roofs. Full price is EUR 6.50 for most of the year and EUR 7.00 from 1 July to 31 August; a combined ticket with the Palais de l’Île works out at around EUR 8 to 9 and is the one to buy if you intend to see both. Entry is free on the first Sunday of the month from October to May. Opening days shift with the season and published sources disagree with each other, so check the museums’ own site for the day you are actually going — we would rather send you to look than print a timetable we cannot stand behind.
3The canals and the Pont des Amours
The Thiou is the lake’s outflow — 3.6 km of river that starts at the water’s edge, runs straight through the Old Town under a run of low bridges, and eventually reaches the Rhône. That is the whole reason for the “Venice of the Alps” nickname, and unlike most nicknames of that shape it is doing honest work. The Pont des Amours, at the lake end, is the one everybody queues to stand on. Go early or go at dusk; in the middle of a July afternoon it is a scrum.
4Jardins de l’Europe and Le Pâquier
The park at the water’s edge and the lakeside meadow beside it. This is where Annecy stops being a pretty old town and starts being a lake town: mown grass running down to the water, the Bauges on one side and the Aravis on the other, and half the population lying on it by six in the evening. It costs nothing, it is the best light of the day, and it is the single most reliable way to understand the place. Bring something from a bakery and stay until the mountains go pink.
5Eat Savoyard, at least once
Savoyard cooking is mountain food: cheese, potatoes, cured pork, freshwater fish out of the lake, and very little that anyone would call light. It is winter food being served to you in August, and that is worth knowing before you order a second one. The Old Town lanes are wall-to-wall with places selling it, quality varies enormously, and we deliberately name none of them — we haven’t eaten in enough of them recently to be honest about it. If you want the shortcut, a guided food walk does the choosing for you: there are two good ones, from around EUR 64.
6The Animation Festival, in June
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has run here since 7 June 1960 — biennial until 1998, annual ever since — and it is the largest event of its kind anywhere. The 2026 edition is over; it ran 21 to 27 June 2026. The next one is 13 to 19 June 2027, with Mifa, the industry market, running 15 to 18 June 2027. The open-air screenings happen on Le Pâquier, free and outdoors, and they are the best of it. Two practical consequences: if you want to be here for it, book accommodation absurdly early; if you don’t, avoid that week entirely.
On and in the water
The lake is 14.6 km long and 82 m deep at its deepest, and it is the reason anyone comes. It also changes the scale of the day completely — which is why the next map is zoomed out.
Map 2 — the lake and the heights, at driving scale. on and in the water, up high. Day trips (#15) head in four different directions, so they have no pin. Note the scale change from the map above: pin 12 is a fifteen-kilometre drive from pin 1.
7Get out on the lake
The one thing every visitor wants, and the one thing you should not book through a tour site. The real boats are run by the Compagnie des Bateaux du Lac d’Annecy and sold at the quay at 2 place aux Bois, in the Old Town: about EUR 19 for the one-hour Discovery run, EUR 22 for the hour-and-a-half Escape, EUR 25 for the two-hour Omnibus that calls at the villages (EUR 16 for children 5 to 12, under-4s free). Walk down, look at the board, buy a ticket. Our cruise page explains when a packaged version is worth the premium and when it very much isn’t.
8Swim from a town beach
You can swim in this lake, and you should. Plage d’Albigny and Plage des Marquisats are both free and both supervised in season; the Marquisats is about 2 km from the Old Town along the shore. Plage de l’Impérial went back to being a paid beach in 2026 — supervised and ticketed from 4 July to 31 August 2026 at EUR 4 standard entry, with resident rates below that. The water sits around 22 degrees in high summer. It is an alpine lake fed partly by an underwater spring at 82 m, so June is genuinely cold and September is genuinely still fine.
9Ride the Voie Verte
The greenway down the western shore, managed by SILA, laid on the trackbed of the old Annecy–Albertville railway — which is why it is flat, and why it runs where it runs. Roughly 30 km one way depending on where you start counting. The full circuit of the lake is about 40 km with 250 to 300 m of climbing, and the eastern shore is on road with traffic, so the two halves feel nothing alike. It is shared with walkers, runners and skaters and it is busy in August: this is not a training circuit, and riding it like one makes you the problem.
10The lake villages
Sévrier and Saint-Jorioz down the western shore, Duingt at the narrows where the lake pinches in, Doussard at the southern end beside the Roselière nature reserve, then Talloires, Menthon-Saint-Bernard and Veyrier-du-Lac coming back up the east. Each has its own beach and its own character, and past two days in Annecy the honest advice stops being “see more things” and becomes “pick one of these and sit in it.” Duingt is the prettiest; Doussard has the wild end of the lake; Talloires is the smartest and knows it.
11Canyoning at Angon
The gorge above Talloires, on the east shore, is where Annecy’s adventure operators actually earn their reviews — guided descents through pools, slides and short abseils in cold, very clear water. It is the best-reviewed genuine Annecy activity we found anywhere in the affiliate inventory, by a wide margin, and it starts from around EUR 55. Half a day, no experience needed for the standard route, and a much better use of a hot afternoon than another lap of the Old Town.
Up high, and out of town
Annecy sits in a hole in the mountains. You cannot see Mont Blanc from the town — the ridges are in the way — but you can from almost any of the heights around it, and getting up one of them is what turns a nice weekend into a memorable one.
12Fly off Col de la Forclaz
The col above Talloires, at 1,147 m, with a south-west facing launch pointed straight down the lake. It is equipped by the commune and the FFVL, it hosted the FAI World Acrobatic Paragliding Championships in 2016, and in high season it handles up to 200 flights a day — one of the busiest free-flight sites in Europe. That number is the point: the site is busy because the air works there, not because somebody marketed it. Tandem flights with a qualified pilot start from around EUR 100 and need no experience at all. If you do one paid thing in Annecy, do this one.
13Drive up Le Semnoz
The ridge on the western side, topped by the Crêt de Châtillon at 1,699 m, about 20 km from town by road. There is an orientation table at the summit and a 360-degree panorama off it: the lake below, the Bauges behind, the Aravis opposite, Lac du Bourget to the south-west, and Mont Blanc on a clear day. “On a clear day” is doing real work in that sentence — check the forecast before you commit an evening to it.
14Walk up Mont Veyrier
The wall directly above the eastern shore, 1,291 m, and the one you can reach on foot from the edge of town rather than by car. Same 360-degree payoff as the Semnoz, including Mont Blanc in clear weather, with the lake laid out directly beneath you instead of off to one side. It is a proper climb rather than a stroll, and the descent is harder on the knees than the ascent is on the lungs.
15Take a day out
Annecy is unusually well placed. Geneva is about 51 km away, roughly 40 minutes by road. Aix-les-Bains and Lac du Bourget are about 32 km, roughly 25 minutes. Chamonix and the foot of Mont Blanc are about 102 km, a little over an hour. Lyon is about 138 km, around an hour and twenty. All four are doable as a day and back, though only the first two leave you any evening. Our day trips page works through which are worth the driving.
How to sequence them
Annecy punishes a checklist sprint, mostly because the Old Town is small enough that doing it quickly means doing it in a crowd. The order below is built around two facts: the lanes are empty before ten, and the lake gets the good light after six.
One day: Old Town early, château, a boat, and Le Pâquier at dusk — all of it on foot.
Two days: day one in town, day two around the lake by bike, boat or car, with a flight or a canyon in the middle of it.
Longer than that: stop sequencing. Pick a village from #10, get a bike or a boat pass, and let the weather decide the rest.
Do the Old Town between eight and ten in the morning. The same lanes that are a shuffling crowd at two in the afternoon are almost empty at nine, the light comes straight down the Thiou, and the bakeries are at their best. Then let the middle of the day happen on the water, where the crowds don’t follow you.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the number one thing to do in Annecy?
Get out onto the lake. The Old Town is what people photograph, but the water is what the town is for, and an hour on a boat reframes everything you walked past in the morning. If you only do one thing, do that one.
Is one day enough to see Annecy?
One day is enough for the Old Town, the Palais de l’Île, the château and a boat trip, and that is a genuinely good day. What one day cannot give you is the lake itself — the far shore, the cycle path, a flight or a canyon. That needs a second day.
What is Annecy famous for?
The canals of the Old Town, which earned it the nickname Venice of the Alps, and a lake with a reputation as one of the cleanest in Europe. Since 1960 it has also been famous for its animation festival, which fills the town every June.
Can you do Annecy without a car?
Yes, and most visitors should. The Old Town is pedestrianised, the beaches and the cycle path start within walking distance, boats leave from the middle of town, and paragliding and canyoning operators run their own transfers from a town meeting point.
Is Annecy just a day trip from Geneva?
It is sold as one, and the trip works — but a day trip lands you in the Old Town at the busiest hour and takes you away before the lake goes quiet. Two nights is the difference between seeing Annecy and being there.