Off the beaten path - Swiss Passions Tourisme en Suisse et Rhône Alpes

Lac du Bourget: born of an angel's tears

Like Léman and Annecy Lakes, Bourget Lake, it is said, was created from the tears of an angel when God asked him to leave the Northern Alps. A little less poetically, geologists think that this stretch of water, the largest of glacial origin in France, was formed at the end of the third ice age of the Quaternary period, that is, a good hundred thousand years ago.

From the Neolithic period, it sheltered lakeside pile dwellings on its banks, it was used, in Ancient Rome, as an inland waterway, and in the 19th century, became a holiday resort. It is on its banks that Alphonse de Lamartine, who had come to heal himself of liver troubles, met Julie Charles, convalescing from tuberculosis. It's also there that he composed « Le Lac » in which he exhorts Time to suspend its flight so that he can find his lost love. This place did not fail to move Honoré de Balzac, who gave a description of it that is at once poetic and precise in « La Peau de chagrin » in 1831.

Today, the lake continues to arouse romance. A shore which has remained wild gives free rein to our imagination. A few beautiful monuments retrace the nearly thousand-year-old history of the Abbey of Hautecombe, which contains the tombs of the Savoy kings, the ruins of the castle Thomas II built in the 13th century and, close by, the Priory of Bourget with its yew trees pruned in the shape of giant chess pieces.

A concentration of life and a climate that is nearly provençal at certain places, favours the growth of species that are typically Mediterranean, such as fig trees, box trees and the delicate maidenhair ferns called « cheveux de Vénus » (Venus' Hair). This biotope contributes to the blooming of fauna that is joyously variegated and to species threatened with extinction, such as the peregrine falcon, the black kite or the eagle owl.

Photo: OT Aix-les-Bains, Gilles Lansard

Practice

To discover Lac du Bourget and the region: www.aixlesbains.com

Follow the captain! And board one of the boats of the Lefebvre family. At the controls, Yann, representative of the second generation, who knows all about this lake that has rocked him since his childhood. That's where he went on holiday with his parents until they left their life and their work in Paris and bought and operated their first boat. From the Savièse Canal that crosses Chautagne, also called the « Venise Chautagnarde » to Lac Bourget, as you are flowing along with the water, Yann will be telling you the most beautiful stories and legends about the region. To find out more, see www.bateaucanal.com.

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