Annecy tips incl. travel from Scotland

[JoanDarc]

We’re looking at Annecy/ surrounding for our main holiday - 2 weeks end of June travelling from central Scotland. Have done plenty of camping sites in France/ Italy but never this area, will be the furthest drive we’ve done.
Looking for recs for main site, ideally pool and direct/ close access to the lake and walking distance to some shops/ cafes. Young teenagers and active family so easy access for cycling paths (bringing bikes) required. Caravan or holiday home/ flat. Must have aircon!
Keen on Lake Annecy but would consider other lakes/ mountains if ticks all the boxes.
Stopover en route each way— 1 night only - probably via the tunnel but TBC.
any tips appreciated!

Love Annecy and been a couple of times.

Places we stopped at were Reims, Troyes and Dijon .

We went via the tunnel (but live much closer than you). Another option would be to fly to Geneva and hire a car, about an hours drive.

Never camped but there’s lots of options around the lake. we stayed in air BnB , one was a little further out, the other by the lake (but not in walking distance of shops, cafes etc).

You can cycle around the lake and there loads of places you can hire bikes if that makes travelling easier.

You can also swim in the lake which is lovely, and it’s known to be a clean lake.

Went a few years back and stopped in campsite the other side of the road, it was easy to walk over to lake with towel for swim

it was 40 degrees and we couldn’t have survived without air con in van

its great for cycling and we did plenty of bike rides

its very expensive part of France

we eat in a lot

We have camped several times in Annecy. The site we use has diredt access to lake and also the cycle track. 2 supermarkets within walking.cycling distance and small town in other direction (St Joriaz). Camping Le Solitaire du Lac is the site we use

We often stop for the afternoon in Beaune on the way down to Annecy - the kids love looking at the old hospital museum with its slightly gory medical instruments. When we’ve done this, we’ve driven on perhaps an hour or so further south and stayed in the Ibis in Macon.

We’ve also had a lovely day parking in a village near Dole and cycling along the side of the Burgundy Canal. There are some… I wouldn’t call them river beaches, as they’re really just areas of grass with concrete steps by the side of the river, from which you can swim, but the kids loved it. We cycled back and had dinner in Dole, which despite its name, is very pretty and perfectly cheery. I vaguely recall that there was an extremely hot Formula 1 hotel in Dole. Definitely, absolutely make sure you pay for the room with the air con!