La Grotte de Sévrier on Lake Annecy

As travel becomes yet more accessible we wake to news stories about full beaches around the world and cities like Venice and Barcelona threatening to add yet more limits to tourism, but this is the same reason why on a beautiful spring day on Lake Annecy, we were the only people scrambling around a forgotten grotto (La Grotte de Sévrier) on the hill above the little village of Sévrier.

While not unique the grotto is beautiful and so very quiet and from the top it has swoon-worthy views of Lake Annecy and the little villages that burrow into its banks. 

From the trickle of information available locally, it seems clear that the cave was put together in 1898/9 by one Abbe Pierre Chapuis, a newly ordained priest, who taught in Sévrier. He was known to have a strong dedication, not just to the children to who he taught, but also to the Virgin Mary, and was exceptionally skilled in manual labour, including mechanical works, watchmaking, masonry, electricity and even astronomy. It was with these interests and devotions in mind that on November 20th 1898, he along with two others signed a notarised deed to whit, Firstly: a chestnut of land with access to the local road; secondly: a source located above, at a place called “The Combettes”. From then on the Parish of Sévrier was legally the owner of a 400 m² plot of land…where now stands La Grotte de Sévrier.

Later, the Abbot Chapuis, aided by the people of the parish put his manual skills to work, creating the foundations of the cave. He then had stones from the river along with limestone blocks from Semnoz transported by trucks and the sand was extracted from a small quarry, which you’ll recognise as a small dirt track a hundred metres or so away. According to local testimonies, the Abbot then made the plans and directed the construction. 

From there on the story blurs, as the good Abbot may have had his busy hands in the similar, much better-known Our Lady of Lourdes grotto in Lourdes.

The stone above appears to be a slightly edited version of a passage from Solomon’s Canticles of Canticles and roughly translates to “I am a dove in the clefts of the rock”

You’ll find the Grotto in the small village of Sevrier here.