84: A week in the Riviera of the Alpes and the International Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat Festival
Welcome to the 84th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.
We are into our 56th week in France 8/23-8/29/26 having spent 3 months in Duras and then roughly a month and a half in St Germaine de Confolens before settling in Chabanais.
We have been in our home in the village of Chabanais in the Charente department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region of France since the middle of December 2025. You might remember that we actually closed on the house on Thanksgiving Day, but it took a couple of weeks to get fully moved in.
Our home in Chabanais, France
Things on the agenda this week:
- VACATION IN THE FRENCH ALPS with Don and Cindy
- International Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat Festival
Weather forecast:
Warm in Aix les Bains a little rain and some windy conditions around Lac du Bourget.
Why this Blog?
Long story short, we are Mark and Elizabeth Beiley (EB), “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees. After a little over a year of planning and fretting we sold everything in Venice and made the move on 1 August 2025.
We publish a brief update of our adventures every Sunday to share our experiences, tips and mistakes.
If you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, check out some of our earlier posts. Again, if you have questions about our adventure, drop your questions in the comment section below.
This Weeks Daily Update
Sunday: Lunch at Zen then last minute prep for our drive to Aix Les Bains
We did some last minute clean up and packing for the trip. Rosie could tell something was happening.
We decided to go to Zen for lunch. I had never been before and was pleasantly surprised at the setting and the food. Zen is a Thai food restaurant located just outside of Pressignac about a 10/15 minute drive from our house in Chabanais. It is an open-air restaurant that sits on the banks of a small lake in the woods. You reach it via a short drive on a gravel road. It is a pretty and tranquil site. The day was perfect with a slight breeze and comfortable temperature. Food was good and service friendly and attentive. Definitely will go back.
EB gave the veggie patch a deep watering. We expect some rain during our absence so all should be good.
Monday: Cool morning and we had plenty of time before we started our drive to Aix les Bains.
After coffee and a quick Duolingo lesson I moved the van onto the curb just outside our door and we loaded up our travel bags.
Our plan was to leave Chabanais around 10 AM and we beat it by a few minutes.
The van is very comfortable and easy to drive despite its length and width. In no time we were winding our way through Limoges and I started to feel that we were really on our way. Once through Limoges the drive was to be on major highways most of the trip.
As always, we were treated to beautiful scenery on the drive. Although, I am sure we would see better scenery on the back roads, but between the extra large van and the 5.5 hours ahead of us we decided to take the most direct route! We had a steady climb to about 950 meters (just over 3100 feet). We noticed that some of the leaves were already starting to change color. Maybe due to the recent heat waves.
I drove the first part (just under 4 hours) and we stopped at one of the famously well-appointed French rest stops. We stopped at an “Aire de service” that features shops, restaurants and fuel stations on the newer section of the A89 highway between Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon. Wow this place was busy. We filled up the tank with diesel and found a parking spot and went into the food court. EB bought us some sandwiches. Rosie and I found a table outside. This was our first experience at an aire and I gotta say, I’m impressed. By the way, there are smaller rest stops referred to as “aire de repos” that have picnic tables and toilets only.
EB took over the driving from there for the final 2 to 3 hours. We skirted Lyon and continued to Aix les Bains, the Riviera des Alpes and arrived around 4:30.
Wow this place is gorgeous. Don rented a condo on the 6th floor of a building with a super nice view of Lake Bourget, Frances largest natural lake. The lake is located in the Savoie department of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region. With a population of over 32,000 in town and 202,000 in the surrounding urban area it is pretty big. The lake is huge with numerous boat marinas and opportunities for sailing, wind surfing, swimming, fishing and other water sports activities as well as golf.
You will find lots of sail boats in the marinas. Power boats too.
Some pictures of the view from the condo. Rosie wearing her new Los Angeles Pink Dragon team jersey.
Cindy is staying with her Dragon Boat team in Chambery. It is about a 20 minute drive south from our lacation. Don had taken a train down to make sure she found her way to the Aix condo. We met Don at the condo and got settled in. When we arrived, Cindy was on the 20-minute walk to the Dragon Boat race venue to check it out. She met us at the outside seating area at the Black Pearl restaurant. After a brief walk around the area Don bought a couple of bottles of wine and we all went up to the condo and sat outside on the balcony with a glass of wine. Weather was pretty near perfect. We had a short rain, cool breeze and very comfortable evening.
Cindy had to get back to her team, so we drove her back to Chambery. We had some tight fits getting in and out of parking lots and had a huge surprise as we were exiting the parking lot in Chambrey. The van just suddenly came to a very abrupt stop. Just one of the bells and whistles of this vehicle that I had never experienced. Apparently, the van sensed something in front of us and just stopped. All is good and we got back to the condo with no further drama.
Tuesday: Train ride to Annecy and walking food tour in the city.
Don ordered an UBER for the ride to the train station. We took a 20 minute train ride to Annecy to meet up with Cindy and her team. There was a bit of a timing mix up, but we met up with the group in a nice park in time to wait for the tour to get underway. We were all going on a walking tour of Annecy that included a little history and visits to a confiture (jam/jelly) shop, Fromager shop, truffle shop, a traditional lunch and a patisserie.
Our Uber driver was careful to let us know that we are not exactly in the Alpes, Aix les Bains and Annecy are basically at the base of the mountain range. The altitude here ranges from 224 to 524 meters (738 feet to 1719 feet) so not all that high.
It is a touristy area, and we were told that real estate is expensive in this area. I’m not surprised. The condo buildings are fairly modern. Of course, the buildings in the historic area date back to 15th century or earlier and there are some Roman ruins in the area as well. Yes, it is touristy but not garish or too in your face.
Our guide mentioned that the area is one of the most sought after and there is a definite housing shortage. Annecy is located on the 2nd largest natural lake in France, and you would not believe how crystal clear the water is.
Pictures of Annecy. There will be more pictures when we stay there next week. There are a lot of canals in this town.
The cheeses and wine pairing was excellent, lunch was a traditional meal with lots of food. This particular restaurant had a bunch of these tourture chamber looking devices that turned out to be a really cool cheese serving method.
It turns out that they put a half of a wheel of cheese on the spikes. Then there is a heater that can be adjusted so that it melts the cheese and then the melted cheese is scrapped off and then shared with the table, Wild!
Our meal did not include the cheese thing, which is called a Raclette. We had a different traditional meal called a Tartiflette, along with a salad and a glass of white wine. A ton of melted cheese, potatoes and ham chunks are put into an oven and baked to get the crispy edges. This thing tasted super good and I’m sure our arteries loved it.
We stuffed ourselves. EB couldn’t finish her plate there was just too much rich food. I managed to finish my dish so as not to offend the chef.
I mentioned that we visited a cheese shop. It is very interesting how these shops are actually referred to as a cheese monger (fromager). Much like wine, cheese has experts and in this particular shop they actually do the final aging of the cheese and it has 3 separate cheese aging rooms.
This picture shows one of the aging rooms. Below our feet is a clear floor that allows us to see the cheese in the aging room.
After lunch we went to a truffle shop. There are so many varieties of these delicacies. It was a little too rich for EB’s taste and she got a little upset stomach. Then on to pastries. I was too full to even think about a pastry. Same with EB and Don and Cindy.
Our train was due to leave so we had to hustle to the station. No problem we were right on time. The train left exactly at the scheduled time. The train was clean, comfortable and punctual.
Once back at the condo, EB and Rosie took a stretch out. I offered to buy Don a beer, so we headed down to the Black Pearl. As Don and I were finishing our beer EB was feeling better and joined us.
We took a long walk along the lake and ended up at a terrific restaurant called l’Aquarium. The food was good and our waitress was a character. We really enjoyed our time and will probably go back there. The below pictures don’t do it justice but suffice to say it was a terrific dining experience.
Wednesday: Another cool morning. We slept in ’til after 7 in the morning. EB and I walked over to the little local grocery store and bought some cheese, a baguette and other staples.
Cindy let us know that her practice run was scheduled for 1:00 so we left the condo around 11:30 and walked over to the visitor’s viewing area. Not a very good location for watching dragon boat races. Don and I walked into the visitor area. They wouldn’t let Rosie in so EB found a shady spot and waited for us to check it all out. Definitely not made for visitors so we walked in took a quick look and walked out and quickly found EB and Rosie. There was a restaurant across the road with a good view of the lake called Chateau du Coucou (Castle of the Cuckcoo) , so we decided to watch for Cindy’s boat from there. We saw a lot of Dragon Boats but couldn’t tell if we were looking at Cindy’s boat or not.
After lunch we walked into the old town of Aix les Bains. There is not much left of the old medieval architecture. After walking around the town, it was time to catch a cab and return to the condo at about 3:30. Rosie was happy to take a stretch out with EB. I followed and quickly feel asleep. I was already getting up when EB came into the room to get me up to join her and Don with a glass of wine. We finished our wine and took the elevator downstairs to check out another restaurant.
I will need to double check the name, it was really good and we had another waitress with personality. We tried a new dish for EB and I that is a specialty of the area; it was an appetizer of baby fish (perch I believe) that were breaded and fried and served with a garlic dipping sauce (the whole fish and nothing but the fish, I swear to God!).
OMG, we ate too much again, but decided on a digestif called Genepi. EB did coffee Savoie which includes Genepi and Don finished off with Armagnac; I just had an espresso. All delicious.
Thursday: We woke up to a cool morning and another gorgeous day.
Don had wanted to hike up the mountain to Dent de Chat (Cat’s Tooth) on the other side of the lake. He had made an arrangement to hike with one of the other guys supporting Cindy’s dragon boat team, I think his name was Jerry. Jerry caught a cold so had to back out of the hike. Instead of the hike Don settled for a drive to the trail head, Col de Chat (Cat’s Bottom). I drove us up a narrow winding road including a few hair pin turns and arrived at the trail head. We all got out of the van and walked around a bit. It was a pretty drive up the mountain side.
We got back to town around noon and had lunch at a fancy pizza place right across the street from the quai. Really good pizza, great service and a nice outdoor ambience. We ended up having enough left over for tonight’s dinner. We had plenty of time before we needed to walk over to the area where the Dragon Boat Festival Parade of Nations was to be organized.
We got a message from Cindy that the Parade of Nations was moved up to 3:00. While we were waiting, we got a message around 2:00 that said they were already starting. We had to hustle to get to the viewing area. We were there in plenty of time to see all of the teams pass by. There is something like 40 teams from the USA. Of course, Los Angeles was represented. There were also teams from Pittsburgh, and Tampa and Sarasota and Mississippi and Kansas City and New York and and and and and. Then there were teams from France and South Africa, and Spain and New Zealand, Switzerland and more. I think there were something like 18 countries or more represented by over 4,500 cancer surviving fierce dragon boat warriors, truly an international event.
It looked like all of the participants were having a great time. Below are pictures of Cindy and some of her teammates hamming it up despite the heat during the Parade of Nations. LOL
Lake Cruise
Cindy was tied up with her team events, so she missed the boat tour on the lake. Don booked a boat ride on Lake Bourget. We met the boat captain at the office at around 5:00 and she led us to a pontoon boat docked on the lake. She fired up the Honda 150 engine and untied the lines and we were off. The lake was calm with hardly a breath of wind. Luckily the weather cooperated, it was not too hot and a little overcast. We motored west across the lake and then northward and skirted the rugged coast and sheer cliffs. We cruised by the Abby (Abbaye de Hautecombe) and continued to the north end of the lake. We came back across the lake and headed toward the south end of the lake then back to the dock where our captain piloted the boat into a very narrow slip. I’m impressed. The lake is about 18 km long and 3 km wide, so our boat ride was about an hour long and enjoyable.
Pictures of the abby.
Back at the condo we played a game of Mexican Train drank some wine and called it a night,
Friday: WINDY!
We woke up to the sound of wind whistling through the rigging of the sail boats tied up at sturdy docks in the marina. The wind kicked up white caps on the lake and small waves crashed over some of the sea walls. Wow, it is really windy and rain is expected. The dragon boats will not be going out into these conditions.
Cindy texted that she was not feeling well and was going to stay in. Maybe the partying had caught up to her. Those Dragon boat ladies can be wild.
EB went over to the little grocery store and bought a baguette. She hadn’t taken Rosie with her and when she got back, she said Rosie would have been blown away by the fierce wind.
We spread some of the confiture that we bought in Annecy on warm slices of the baguette. Coffee and confiture spread on a warm slice of baguette. Life is indeed Good.
And the wind continues to howl. A couple of hearty wind surfers braved choppy water, and it looked like they were having a blast. Then the wind picked up even more. Wind direction changed too. It started out south to north then turned west to east. The lake was all churned up. Then a pretty intense rainstorm hit.
The Dragon Boat races are definitely postponed and rescheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully this will give Cindy a chance to feel better as she is a key paddler for her stroke calling.
After lunch of warmed up left over pizza and a beer we had to check out a restaurant where we will have lunch on Monday that we saw when we were on our boat trip the night before. When we pick up Cindy, we will also pick up Wes and Karen. We had to confirm that there wouldn’t be many steps into the restaurant as Wes has some mobility issues. More winding, twisting hair pin roads but once you get to the restaurant the view is spectacular. Lunch at this restaurant will be a great way to end our stay in Aix les Bains. Oh, and the access should not cause Wes any issues.
Afterwards we went to a brew pub that was on Don’s wish list. It is a typical brew pub with excellent beer and a very casual vibe. We tasted a couple of beers and bought a few bottles for later. Don also bought some really cool beer glasses and a T-shirt to take back to California. We had a little rain on the drive, but not bad. Actually the weather turned nice and cool.
Saturday: RACE DAY
The weather cooperated, the lake was relatively calm and racing could get underway. Cindy’s race was scheduled for 9:45ish. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to enter the visitor area with Rosie so EB and I went directly to the swim beach where we could see the race starts although not close enough to actually pick out individual paddlers or even teams. We found a shady spot and set up.
Don had gone into the visitor area to see if he could catch Cindy.
I think maybe the third or fourth start that we watched a boat capsized as they left the start line. We were pretty sure it wasn’t Cindy’s boat. She texted a short time later and said a boat had capsized at the start, but she didn’t have any details. The next group to start could not get organized at the start line. I guess it was too windy. The officials halted racing until the wind died down. Eventually racing resumed and Cindy’s team did get a start. While we were waiting Don had been in the visitor area where there is a ton of dragon boat merch. He found a 3 bottle pack of area wines for 35 euros. We all agreed that sounded like a good deal, so I went in to buy a pack as well. We have plenty of wine for the near future.
Since it looked like it would be a while before racing would resume, we decided to go to the Coucou restaurant and have lunch. This is an interesting restaurant decorated on the theme of Coucou (cuckoo) clocks. They have a huge collection of clocks arranged through out the restaurant. Food is pretty good and since we hadn’t had any breakfast, we were all hungry. We ran into some folks that Don knew from the LA Pink Dragons at the restaurant. I met a guy named Jerry. He had a J boat baseball cap on, and we talk a little sailing.
After lunch EB and I found another shady perch at the swim area and chilled out. Don took the 6 bottles of wine back to the condo as he had to get his phone charger. I forgot to bring a bathing suit on this trip so didn’t go swimming.
Around 3:30 we were getting sun burned and bored as we really could only see the boats line up and start and even that not so well. So when Don came back we all decided to go back to the condo.
From our 6th floor vantage point in the condo, we can see lots of boats on the lake. Beautiful!
All this walking wore Rosie out. EB was planning on washing Rosie’s blanket, so it was on the floor. Rosie found it there and curled up in her favorite blanket.
EB and I did get our Duolingo French lessons done so yay us.
So that was our week.
We drove east across France to Aix Les Bains which is considered the Riviera of the Alpes. The drive was about 6 hours of beautiful French scenery. We spent the week exploring the area enjoying some seriously good restaurants, cheeses and local wines. We tried a new spirit called Genepi. I will buy a bottle of it to take back to Chabanais. We attended the Parade of Nations at the International Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat festival. Cindy got to participate in the international boat races.
French Lifestyle and Culture
What the heck is Pétanque?
I learned from Connexionfrance.com that Pétanque is a French sport traditionally played by older adults but is becoming a hit among young people, foreign tourists and Americans in France.
I admit that I had never heard of the game, but I understand that it is indeed popular in the USA. There are something like 30,000 players in the US according to Pétanque America.
The name comes from pieds tanques, or planted feet. When playing the game your feet do not step outside a 35-50 cm (roughly 14 inches to 20 inches) diameter circle.
The game was invented in the early 1900’s and is widely associated with the French art de vivre. That is “relaxing, aperitifs, family meals and family-oriented moments revolve around petanque. It turns out that this aspect of French life particularly resonates with Americans.
It is said that it is the most widely played boules game in the world. Who knew??
While a competitive court has very specific dimensions, when playing for fun the court can be just about any dimensions. Pros use steel balls, but lower cost softer balls are available for beginners.
So you have teams of 1, 2 or 3 players and each player has 2 or 3 balls. The jack or target ball is tossed out by the first team about 6 to 10 meters. Then team one throws a ball in an attempt to get close to the target ball. So you throw your ball to get close to the target or throw your ball to move your opponent’s ball away from the target. After all of the balls are thrown the team with the closet ball wins the round. It sounds like it could be fun. For all of you aficionados, I apologize for messing up the rules and if I messed up the explanation my apologies.
It sounds like fun and pretty easy to set up a simple friendly game. While on one of our walks we actually saw a group of guys playing the game in a small dirt patch near the restaurant,
Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)
- TRAVEL TO ANNECY, FRANCE WITH FAMILY
- Pick up Danny and Rhonda in Geneva
- Dijon AirBnb and a Truffle hunting tour
Weather forecast in Annecy for next week
Forecasted high temp of 28C (82F). Overnight lows getting down to 13C (55F). Partly cloudy most of the week with a low chance of rain. We will be in Annecy next week for a few days.
Signing off for the week
As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.
Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you all.
Wishing you a good week (Bonne Semaine)
Mark and Elizabeth Beiley
Babyboomersmovetofrance.com
