The Vieille Ville is what the postcards mean by Annecy: a tight grid of arcaded streets either side of the Thiou canal, lined with five- and six-storey houses painted in faded pastels and connected by stone footbridges over the running water. The arcades that line Rue Sainte-Claire and Rue du Pâquier were built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to keep the snow off the shopfronts.
The whole quarter is pedestrian. The Tuesday, Friday and Sunday market spills along the Rue Sainte-Claire; the rest of the time the same streets are full of restaurants, savoyard cheese-and-charcuterie shops, and patisseries. It gets very crowded in July and August — early morning and early evening are the manageable windows.