12 Most Beautiful Lakeside Towns and Villages (3 of 7)

Plockton, UK

Palm trees in Scotland? Who could have imagined!? But that’s what you’ll see when you visit the Scottish Highlands village of Plockton. Home to around 370 residents, a couple of quirky conditions converge—the warm ocean currents of the North Atlantic Drift and the placement of the town outside of the high wind zones—to produce a climate warm enough for palm trees, which are typically found in warmer regions, to grow there!

Annecy, France

The capital of France’s Haute-Savoie region, Annecy is often described as the “Venice of the Alps.” It’s known for its bustling markets and romantic old town. You would definitely want to check out the town’s chateau, whose construction spanned 4 centuries from the 1200s through its completion in the 1500s.