Walking around the Lake in Nantua and visiting the museum dedicated to the French Resistance.
If you live in the Pays de Gex or Geneva area, have you taken some time to visit Nantua?
This little town used to be on the main route between Geneva and Lyon. Since the motorway came into existence, people tend to pass it on the impressive viaduct, barely getting a few glimpses of the small town and adjacent lake before entering a tunnel.
The drive there should take you just under an hour, depending on where you live. Why not take that old route to Lyon, passing Chatillon-en-Michaille and Saint Germain de Joux. This should take just a couple of minutes longer than the motorway (according to my GPS), and you won’t have to pay the motorway fee.
I have wanted for many years to verify the possibility of walking around all of Lake Nantua. As it turns out, waiting for so long was actually a good thing. A beautiful walkway has recently been built around the whole lake and the inauguration took place only last year.
If you visit Nantua on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday, the path along the south side of the lake is even closed for cars, making the walk even nicer. There is a nice big parking by the lake in Nantua, but I believe it must be packed on nice and sunny days. If this is the case, you could try your luck at the other end of the lake, in one of the small towns of Montreal-la-Cluse or Port and start your walk from there. There are also some smaller parking areas along the north side of the lake.
You will find the map of the walk at the bottom of the post. If you are an adult it should take you no more than around 1,5 hours to walk around the whole lake. However, you may want to stop for a picnic, either at one of the benches somewhere along the lake path, or in Montreal-la-Cluse where there is a big park with picnic tables. It is actually forbidden to go for a swim in most of the lake, apart from the designated areas close to Nantua where there are stairs installed for entering the water and a special peddling pool for smaller children.
Around the lake you will find that you can do many types of water sports, including sailing, diving and fishing.
If you start your walk in Nantua, going clockwise around the lake, you will be passing a memorial site for victims deported to concentration camps during world war two. In the Ain department, the resistance against both the occupying Germans and the Vichy government was particularly strong. The monument was inaugurated in 1949 and is a symbol of hope and the right to freedom for all. It has the names engraved of the 595 people who died and were never able to return home. It is very hard to walk away untouched by all the suffering these poor souls must have gone through.
After completing our walk, we visited the Musée de la Resistance et Déportation in Nantua. This museum offers great insights into the resistance movement in the region during the second world war. Most of their information is also provided in English. Since our visit took place right after the opening after the COVID-19 confinement in 2020, there were still restrictions on many things, such as the number of people allowed at any time. Also, we could not borrow any of the audio devises and we could not take any leaflets. The staff however was super friendly and made the visit extremely pleasant in spite of the restrictions.
I strongly advice to set enough time aside for a visit to the museum, either before or after the walk, because this part of the local history is very fascinating and there is a lot to take in.
I hope you enjoy visiting Nantua!
The Activity Factory 