Attractions and Places To See around Cernex - Top 20

Head of Mandallaz and Sillingy fault mirror

Permanent house of Compesières, occupies a special place among the castles of the region due to its role as Commander Johanniter. Of the original ensemble, only the residential wing has survived. The church and economic buildings were replaced by new buildings in the Middle Ages, and the outer walled enclosure that once protected the entire building complex has disappeared today.

very gloomy place housing the ancient thermal baths of the pont de la quailles

Ancient thermal baths, a rather dark and gloomy place

Mandallaz Mountain, also known as Mandallaz Mountain (pronounced Mandalle), or Balme Mountain, is a mountain in the Prealps located in the Haute-Savoie department (France). The word mandallaz comes from the Old French muer, which gave rise to the verbs "remer" and "mouvoir," and more specifically the noun remue. It thus refers to a small chalet located in an alpine pasture, and in Savoyard, muanda, with the diminutive suffix -allaz. The mountain is locally known as Balme Mountain or La Balme-de-Sillingy, from the name of the eponymous commune. In a transcript of a meeting of the Florimontane Academy (1912), a note states that "Mandallaz is wrongly called the mountain of Balme de Sillingy." It can also be called Mandallaz Mountain or simply La Mandallaz. The Mandallaz Mountains are a small pre-Alpine massif, eight kilometers long and three to four kilometers wide, located northwest of the Annecy basin. It extends through the communes of Annecy (formerly Pringy), Choisy, Cuvat, Épagny-Metz-Tessy, La Balme-de-Sillingy, Sillingy, and Allonzier-la-Caille. Its most prominent peak, the Tête de la Mandallaz, at the southern end of the mountain overlooking La Balme-de-Sillingy and Épagny-Metz-Tessy at an altitude of 900 meters, is not its highest point; the highest point is located in the center of the mountain at 923 meters. The Mandallaz offers panoramic views of the Annecy metropolitan area, Lake Annecy, the Alps, the Montagne d'Âge, and the surrounding countryside.

The Caille baths are former thermal baths, now disused, located in the Usses gorges, in the town of Cruseilles in Haute-Savoie. Probably already known to the Romans1, they are fed by two sulfurous springs which spring at the bottom of the Usses valley, downstream from the Caille bridges. These baths have been used several times at least since the Middle Ages. They were actually developed from the middle of the 19th century but have not been exploited since the 1960s, their location nestled in the gorges, the moderate flow and temperature of the springs not having favored the sustainability of the establishment. The waters are sulphurous, alkaline, gaseous, hot at 24°Re or 30°C1. They are used in drinks, baths, showers and steam baths. They become cloudy as soon as they are exposed to air and then give off a very characteristic odor. They escape in two sources from the limestone bases of the so-called “Châtelard” mountain. Their flow rate of approximately one hundred liters of water per minute corresponds, for example, to the content of a bath per minute1. They are easily digested; also, patients can drink 8 to 12 glasses per day. They are used more particularly against diseases of the skin, joints, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, internal and external engorgement, vapors, migraines, etc. The operation of the baths stopped definitively around the 1960s. The buildings were then partly destroyed, and ruins remained, including the old swimming pool at the entrance to which we can still read the inscription “BENI BE GOD WHO MADE THE SPRINGS BRING OUT. ALONGSIDE THE EVILS, HE PUT THE REMEDY.”

Mandallaz hike

A great view for a wooden bridge… infamous in the region but superb.