A hike in Grenoble

At the beginning of July there was another U of T alumni event following the one in Paris, this time in Grenoble, a city a little over an hour to the southeast of Lyon. I had known of Grenoble for a long time since my aunt, uncle and cousins lived there during my uncle's sabbatical in the 90s. However I didn't know much about the actual city itself. It's home to about 60,000 students due to its many post-secondary institutions, especially in the science sector. Like Lyon it has two rivers running through it that join up, le Drac and l'Isère. It is in a valley surrounded by breathtaking mountains on all sides, which keep it quite toasty in the summertime. The event was for a (gentle) hike up to the Bastille which was a military fort at the top of the mountain in the centre of the city. One of our newly-made friends from the Paris event, Antonio, was also going so we met up with him in Lyon and took the train together to Grenoble. 

We stepped off the train and headed toward the meet up spot where we were to find Raluca, the alumna who was hosting our visit. It was just the four of us doing the hike but we would be joined by two others at the top where we would be eating lunch. On our walk to the park entrance we coincidentally passed a restaurant with a familiar name so we had to snap a photo:

How random is that! Considering we have all lived in Ontario at some point when studying at U of T it was quite the coincidence. We reached our starting point near the Porte de France at the entrance to the Jardin des dauphins and off we went to meander through the paths of the Bastille.

The shot above is of the bubble-like cable cars which you can take from the ground level across the river up to the top if hiking and sweating isn't your thing. Locally they are referred to as les boules. We passed lots of very athletic people on our trek to the top, as Grenoble has quite the extreme-sport population (conveniently the Alps are a short drive away). People were full-on running up steep inclines and I even saw a guy carrying his bike making me think there was a mountain biking area somewhere. Also at the top of the Bastille is an obstacle course of sorts, called the Acrobastille. It involves climbing, tightrope-walking, ziplining and many other adventurous manoeuvres. For more information here's the website to the Bastille: http://www.bastille-grenoble.fr/english/index.html.

We met the two other alumni and settled in for lunch at Le Téléferique restaurant. Very delicious food with spectacular views! James and the two other men (whose names I can't remember) ordered steak frites, Antonio and I had giant salads, mine being la salade grenobloise, and Raluca had pasta. The desserts were beautifully presented and quickly devoured.

After lunch we made our way back down the opposite side of the mountain to mix it up a bit. It was an extremely hot day, not unusual for Grenoble, so we maximized on being in the shade when we could.

From this side we were coming out at the Porte Saint-Laurent, but just before leaving we stepped back in time with a stop at the Musée archéologique Grenoble-Saint-Laurent. This incredible museum (in French: http://www.musee-archeologique-grenoble.fr/) is actually in a church that was discovered to have been built upon hundreds of years of history. Originally a mausoleum from the 4th and 5th centuries, then a church crypt from the 6th century, and later a Benedictine priory. In 1986 it became a museum while doing archaeological digs, but was then closed from 2003-2011. In May of that year it was reopened after extensive renovations and the addition of platforms for visitors to stand on and fully appreciate the astounding discoveries in front of them.

Though it's not a very big museum I wish we'd had a little more time to spend here, just to really take it all in. Trying to process seeing skeletons from hundreds of years ago just lying there in front of you is definitely something. And we saw monetary artifacts from two millennia ago! But I'm sure we'll be back to Grenoble since we didn't get to see the actual city itself. Something to look forward to!