Expensive, but worth it? Annecy, France

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I spent a weekend exploring Annecy, France to learn more about its livability. Often called the “Venice of the Alps,” this stunning lakeside city in Haute-Savoie has it all: crystal-clear Lake Annecy, dramatic mountain views, charming medieval architecture, and a thriving cross-border economy (10% work in nearby Switzerland). But there’s a catch: it’s expensive. In this video, I take you through what actually matters for living here: the affordable SIBRA public transport system, real estate costs, healthcare access, walkability through the old town, and proximity to Switzerland. I compare Annecy to my home city of Dijon and share practical details like train connections to Paris, Geneva, and Lyon. Whether you’re considering a move to France, researching French cities, or just curious about this Alpine gem, I’ll show you why Annecy topped the rankings.

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Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:45 Basic facts about Annecy
01:53 Why is Annecy ranked number 1?
03:52 What is the climate like in Annecy?
04:18 Transportation in Annecy
07:34 Walkability in Annecy
08:33 Air quality in Annecy
08:57 Healthcare in Annecy
09:40 Housing costs in Annecy
13:14 Is Annecy a university city?
14:04 Culture in Annecy
18:24 Comparing Annecy to Dijon
19:40 Where did we stay and what did we eat when we were in Annecy?

#LivingInFrance #ExpatLife #FrenchCulture #AmericanInFrance #CulturalDifferences #FrenchSociety #ExpatsInFrance #FrenchLifestyle #AmericanExpat #ExpatStories #MovingtoFrance #AnnecyFrance #FrenchCities #QualityOfLife #MoveToFrance #LakeAnnecy #AlpineLiving #HauteSavoie #VeniceOfTheAlps

If you’re researching the best place to move in France, Ane has probably come up on your list. Venice of the Alps, pristine lake, mountains everywhere. Ranked at the top for quality of life in multiple surveys. I’m Susie. I’m American and I’ve been living in France since 2008. Indon, a city of comparable size, which also ranks quite high in these surveys. This October weekend, I’m here in NC to try to get an idea of what living here is really like. the transportation, the health care, the walkability, the housing market. Because while NC ranks incredibly high, there are definitely a few things you need to know before you fall in love with it. But first, a reminder that if you’d like to, you can sign up for my email newsletter by scanning the QR code here or by clicking on the link in the video description below. All right, let’s explore NCI. To start, a little background. ANC’s population is about 131,000 people in the city proper and about 185,000 in the greater metropolitan area. It’s the prefecture. That’s the capital of the Savoa deto number 74. Keep that in mind for later. And is in the much larger region of OAN. And just a note on pronunciation, it’s an in two syllables, an like the name Anc. The city sits at the northern tip of Lake Anc, one of Europe’s cleanest lakes. You can literally swim in crystal clear water right in your city. We saw people in the water. Granted, they were wearing wet suits. The old town called the Vieil is beautifully preserved with medieval architecture and charming canals, which is why people call this the Venice of the Alps. The proximity to Switzerland, specifically Geneva, shapes the local economy, the culture, and especially the cost of living. This video, like other videos in this series, is going to focus on lifestyle related issues. But I will give you a little peek at where we stayed and what we ate at the end of the video since I know there are a bunch of you out there who are curious about that as well. So let’s start with the ranking. Why is NC ranked number one on this website v which ranks French cities and towns? You can see NC is number one and the little headline here is shvu expensive but worth it. So if we click on it and we have the description of the city of NC, you have a blurb that gives you the background and then down here you have some of the facts and figures about the city itself and then um what goes into the score of NC. So you can see that it has a trophy for dynamism, luazier, leisure activities, health um weather doesn’t rank so high there, but education this is for children’s education. Um and then as also sub for so university education is over here and then spore 89 so with a trophy as well. So I would definitely recommend coming and checking out this website because it it provides a lot of information about cities um small towns and even villages. So you can really do a lot of research here and you can even compare cities and villages um based on whatever is important to you and you can see if you have a few favorites you can see how they can compare. And on another large database and website called Vonra that ranks cities and towns, NC ranks third overall behind at number one and at number two. Two places I have never personally been to but now we’ll need to add to my list of places to check out. This is also a fun website to come and play around on as well. So um I searched for NC and it came up third nationally and second in terms of cities. It’s first in its debt. Um and it’s the biggest city in its debt. So it finishes first and then there they also provide a lot of information here mainly more about real estate and then some information about uh the population in NC as well. So it just gives you an idea again searching for data from different sources you can kind of get a a sense of the ranking and the some of the information about the city but it’s always good to go check it out as well. So in terms of climate has an oceanic mountain climate with four distinct seasons. Winters can be cold with snow, though the city itself doesn’t always get heavy snowfall. The mountains around it do though, which is perfect if you ski. Summers are warm but not scorching, and the lake provides natural cooling, plus swimming opportunities, and the area gets a fair amount of rain year round, like when we were there in late October. October being one of the rainiest months. Next, let’s talk about getting around because this is obviously very important for daily life. The public transport system is called Sibra. I noticed many of the SER buses were labeled as being electric and apparently in 2024 the prices for using the system were cut. The adult annual pass is just €100 per year or €50 a year for working folks who qualify. Students and youth under 26 as well as seniors can pay €80 for an annual pass. Riding once is €1.50 50 cents if you use the Sebra app to buy an e ticket, but apparently you can pay on board for €2. There are 20 urban bus lines and seven regional lines all centered around the train station. Check the Sebra website for operating times and frequencies of different lines. And apparently there is a project to build a tram line scenario E that we see here. But I didn’t find any recent updates on this project though, so I’m not sure it’s still in the works. In terms of train connections, NC is about 90 minutes from Geneva on a Lemon Express train, and this is a commuter rail network for the transporter elomeration of Grojanev, Greater Geneva in Switzerland, and the French Alps. And the train to Geneva is about €20, I think, depending. It’s about 2 hours to Leon by direct tu, so slow train for about €33. And it takes about 4 hours and at least €100 to get to Paris by Tiju or fast train at least when you buy your ticket at the last minute. And there are multiple trains daily to Geneva, Leon and Paris. And in terms of international airport connections, there are direct buses from NC to the Geneva airport and it takes about an hour and 15 minutes. We saw these green bikes around everywhere. They’re called Villaini and you can rent them at the train station for a day, a week or a month. But they also have these bikes that you can rent for shorter periods as well. Available at different stations around the city. Veency 60 minutes. It does look like you need to have a URA card to rent these though, which is a personalized local transport card in order to be able to use them. For cycling, we noticed bike lanes around the city. Sometimes they were just painted lines separating the bike lane from car traffic, but other times the bike lanes were separated. However, NC’s hilly topography and narrow medieval streets mean it might not be easy to cycle everywhere. In a survey of bikability of French cities, NC got Pluto Fever as opposed to my city, Djon D. And I heard in one of the videos that I watched about biking in NC that about 6% of people get around regularly by bike there. And you can use the car sharing program cities in NCI as well. We saw one CTS car and then drove around looking for others to film. But all we found were a few empty parking spots. So I guess that means that all of the cars were checked out. So maybe there is a bigger demand in Anie than here in Djon because when I tried the program here in Djon a few weeks ago, it seemed like most of the cars here in Djon were actually available on a Sunday morning, which was about the same time of the week that we were driving around looking for them in NC. If you’re interested in learning more about the city’s car share program, I will link to my recent video about it here in the top corner of the screen. In terms of walkability, NC feels very walkable in the city center. The old town is largely pedestrianized and the lakefront prominad is extensive and beautiful. In the 2023 Barometab, that’s the official walkability survey, NC received a grade of C, which is classified as Pluto Fever, rather favorable. And that’s the same grade that Djon my city received. And from what I experienced, they did feel pretty similar. The city does have hills and some neighborhoods are quite spread out, but if you live near the lake and work in the center, you’re probably all set. Further out, you probably rely more on buses, cars, or bikes. But what really struck me was how pleasant the walking experience is in the downtown areas. You’re not just walking to get somewhere. You’re walking past the lake, through these charming streets, under these arcades, along canals. It’s just really cute and charming and lovely, even in the rain. Next, moving on to air quality. The air quality in NC certainly seemed fine when we were there, but a little research found that the city is not actually that wellranked. In fact, according to the European Environment Agency, it is ranked 55th out of 68 French cities. So that is definitely something to take into consideration if this is an important criteria in your choice. Next, moving on to healthcare. NC is the home to the Santra Hospital anci Genevoir, a major regional hospital which we drove up to film and as with so many things here I was in awe of the beauty of the surrounding area. According to this data, the Utava demo, so 74 on this map has average to slightly above average density in terms of GPS and slightly below average density in terms of medical specialists. But this information is quite old. I wish I had more info on this and I would love it if anyone watching this who may be more familiar with healthcare and NC would chime in in the comments. Now moving on to housing and real estate which is going to be a bit of a challenge here in NC because this number one ranking comes with a serious price tag. When you zoom out and you look at the entire OAL region, you can see that the Alps here are much more expensive than OA over there in the in the west. And if we zoom into the Utava demo, we see that the area around NC itself is very expensive in an already expensive debt. And then when we zoom into NC itself, we see that the average pi price per square meter for an apartment is €5,664 per square meter to buy or €17.80 per meter to rent. And I was just in shock when I saw some of the listings in the real estate agency windows. These prices are similar to the biggest nicest listings in Djon where just to compare the average price per square meter to buy an apartment is €2515 per square meter 44% the price in NC. So here are a few listings over a million for this apartment at a price of €8200 per square meter. This one €769,000 for 98 m for €7800 per square meter. This one €780,000 for 86 m which is over €9,000 per square meter. According to the Tonometra Locatif, which measures how competitive the rental market is, it is hard to find a place to rent an NC. And when we were walking around, I did see some apartment listings for rent in the windows of the real estate agencies. And while they were expensive, I didn’t find them astronomic, which was my reaction to the price of the properties that I saw that were listed for sale. for example, about €1,400 per month for a 73 square meter apartment, €732 for a 38 meter apartment, or €1,400 a month for a 67 m apartment. But here’s what you need to understand. About 10% of NC’s working age population commutes to Switzerland for work. Swiss salaries are often two to three times higher than French salaries in comparable positions. This creates a two-tier economy. If you work in Switzerland as a fontalier, a crossborder worker, you earn Swiss wages and can more easily afford and seize prices. If you work locally in France, housing costs consume a much larger portion of your income. I also wanted to get outside of the city center to try to film some of the residential areas to give you an idea of what type of housing stock there was here. We saw a mix of apartment buildings and single family homes. And often times in the distance, I just couldn’t help but notice the absolutely beautiful mountain views. And sometimes I thought the architecture was pretty standard, something similar to what you’d see anywhere in France. And sometimes I noticed a bit more of an alpine flare. So in terms of employment, understanding employment in NC means understanding the Swiss border economy. As I said before, about 10% of NC’s working residents commute to Switzerland, primarily Genevat, for jobs in international organizations, banking, pharma, tech, and hospitality. For the deto% of workers who commute to Switzerland, mainly Geneva. And the osavo is the French department with by far the largest number of workers who do this. The local NC economy includes year-round tourism, summer lake tourism, winter ski nearby, plus traditional industries and services supporting the affluent population. Moving on to talk about education and student life in the sense of university students. NC is home to one of the three campuses of the University Savo Mlon and its campus here has about 8,000 students compared to nearly 40,000 students in Djon. In NC there’s also the EU NC and several specialized schools including including an engineering school. The city ranked 10th out of 47 in recent student city rankings. Students appreciate the quality of life and the stunning setting but cite the high cost of living as a major challenge. Finding affordable student housing is particularly difficult. We drove to the area where many of the schools seem to be located and I was blown away again by the physical beauty of the surrounding area, but the neighborhood seemed pretty far outside of the city center. In terms of culture, the lake lifestyle is what really sets an apart. Lake Ani is one of the cleanest lakes in Europe. In summer, locals swim, paddle board, sail, and kayak. Even in October, we saw people out on sailboats and some people even in the water in wet suits. There are beaches and lakeside areas for picnicking. In winter, snowcapped mountains are reflected in the water. It’s absolutely breathtaking. And the lake isn’t just scenery. It’s an active part of daily life, it seems. And the old town is just magical with the canals running through it and the nickname Venice of the Alps. There you see flowered covered bridges and medieval architecture. Also, there’s the pel, an island castle from the 12th century, which has become one of the symbols of the city. On Sunday morning, we saw these market stands that were set up all around the Vieil in the old city center. There were local organic veggies and plenty of other goods and foods on offer. So, mountain access deserves special mention here. Within 30 to 60 minutes, you have access to multiple ski stations. Weekend skiing is apparently regular for many residents of NC. And one of the trains I saw at the train station, I even saw that there was a sign indicating where to store your skis on the train. And in summer, the mountains offer hiking via ferrata and paragliding. And you can rent these pedalo and take them out on the lake, which seems like it would be so much fun. The city also has a genuinely international vibe. We heard multiple languages and found a nice selection of restaurants. although we went for sort of local regional fair ourselves. Um major events in NC include the Fedulak with massive fireworks in August and the festival international film a major animated film festival. However, speaking of tourists, one thing I did notice when I was browsing around a bit on the VR website was this feature where they talk about over tourism. the website generates something it calls the Tori score. So here we are back on the VR website. I thought it would be interesting to show you this as well. So if you scroll down here on the right you see so over tourism in downtowns and you can click on the button here to see the study and you can see they explain the different sort of grades from A which means that there’s a low tourist pressure on the city in different criteria different categories to E which indicates that the city is very touristy and that there’s a very strong tourist pressure on the local population. And if you go scroll down to NC, you can see that um it says that 24% of the housing in the downtown area is short-term rentals. Next, it says that 55% of the recent real estate transactions have been converted into short-term rentals, if I’m understanding this correctly. And then it says that 46% of the listings um on Airbnb are run by people who have several short-term rentals, indicating that they’re sort of professionals. And then uh in terms of restaurants, uh there are a lot of bars and restaurants in the city center and um the overall score is E, meaning that the pressure, the tourist pressure on the local residents is very strong. Here you can also see a map of the different cities in France as well. And here’s my city, Djon. If you click on it, Djon has a B overall. It says that 6.1% of housing in downtown Djon is is short-term rentals. Um, only 4 4.1% of lo of recent purchases, real estate purchases have been converted into short-term rentals. 41% of the listings on Airbnb are run by people who have more than three listings or more. And then uh okay, there’s I don’t know if A is good or bad, but 53 bars and restaurants in in per kilometer square in in Djon. and um that the pre the pressure for of tourism on local um residents is Fabique. I did really get the impression that there were a lot of tourists there and we were there a weekend in late October. Granted, there seemed to be a lot of locals as well, but coming from Djon, I definitely felt like I noticed a difference in terms of the amount of tourists walking around the city center. I can’t help comparing NC to Djon where I’ve lived for over 17 years. What do they share? Both regularly rank highly in terms of quality of life surveys. Both have manageable walkable city centers, historic architecture, good train connections, and authentic French city experiences. But here’s where they differ. NC’s advantages, the lake, obviously having a pristine alpine lake as part of daily life is extraordinary. Mountain access for skiing and biking and hiking is great. proximity to Switzerland for international job opportunities and a more dramatic natural setting. Djour’s advantages, it’s much more affordable in terms of housing and maybe in cost of living, although I didn’t really get a sense of that in just over the course of just a weekend. Djour is a slightly larger city, so there are more students here, and it feels like it’s less impacted by tourism and crowds of tourists. My honest assessment, if money is no object and you love outdoor sports, NC is probably hard to beat. It’s genuinely spectacular. For me personally, living in Djour means that I can visit places like NC for the weekend. while being able to afford living well here in my home city. And for those of you who are curious about where we stayed and what we ate, this was our hotel lais right in downtown NC down this little passage and right on one of the little canals. It has just been completely renovated. It had the sweetest hand painted details everywhere in the hallways, in our room, in the hotel restaurant, the deont. and we were even upgraded to a bigger room. The room was really charming and cute and the staff was just great. Saturday afternoon when we arrived in NC, we ate lunch at Sha Ingos. I had a fried samarana salad. It’s a cheese technically from the same region over. Um the restaurant itself seemed like it was absolutely hopping. It was really cozy and had a great vibe. And then for dinner, we ate in the restaurant that was on the ground floor of our hotel. I had ravio de which is also a somewhat local specialty. Well again from the same major region. Anyway, Sunday morning we had breakfast at the deonticare which is open all day every day for anyone to pop in and have a snack or a meal but it also caters to hotel guests for breakfast for example. And then on Sunday we had lunch. Oh at lunchtime we got caught in this crazy downpour and ran into this restaurant that just happened to be right by where we were called dut where I think we were actually really lucky to get a table. And I had a fondu savoyard and my husband had a show savoyard. Everything was delicious. So does NC deserve its place among the best French cities? Surely, but with an asterisk if you can afford it. Whether through a Swiss job, remote work income, or a healthy retirement savings. NC offers an extraordinary quality of life. lake swimming in summer, skiing in winter, stunning natural beauty, excellent healthcare, improving public transit, and that alpine lifestyle. But young professionals on French salaries, students, or anyone on a tighter budget might really struggle here, visiting NC for the first time in 25 years, reminded me yet again why I love living in France. There are just so many incredible cities, each with its own individual character. So, what do you think? Is the breathtaking beauty worth the premium price? And where should we go next for our next city adventure? Drop your suggestions in the comments below. I’m thinking either or mess. Stay tuned. If this was helpful, definitely subscribe for more videos like this of French city explorations. And don’t forget to sign up for my free email newsletter. The link is in the video description below. If you’d like to learn more about DJ, the city where we live, you can check out this playlist here. And if you’d like to watch more of our city exploration videos, you can check out this playlist here. Thank you so much for watching and until the next time, ato.