Grenoble: Savoy Faire

NOTE: Because I have been busy climbing and not updating my blog, I'm a little behind - so the following is broken up into two entries. Scroll down to read about Les Calanques and Marseille; and this one is the most recent, Grenoble. Merci pour votre patience.

Grenoble

So, on Friday, Peter headed back to Canada, and I enjoying a rest day from climbing, headed to Grenoble to meet an old friend, Jakob Verbeek - who moved to Grenoble one year ago from Amsterdam. Grenoble is a beautiful alpine city, with a great history (like 4th century old).

Jakob is a great host, and I was thrilled to see him again. On Saturday we got in the car and headed to Orpierre, about an hour and a half from Grenoble. France has too much amazing rock. They need to sell us some. The rock is just like Les Calanques, but transplanted in an alpine setting over the quaint village of Orpierre.

Orpierre

Jakob roping up in Orpierre

The following day I got to experience one of the great reasons to live and work in Grenoble, and why so many Europeans flock to live here. Grenoble is like a smaller, prettier, more historic version of Vancouver, but without the bad weather. What do you like? Hiking, skiing, climbing, mountain biking? What ever you like, you can do in Grenoble just by stepping out your front door. It's mildly surreal to walk through the city with all your climbing gear. But it's normal around here in a town surrounded by climbing routes, via ferrata lines, and bus/train accessible ski areas.

Walking through the streets, coming back from climbing

So under more sunny skies and the warm sun, we hiked up the Bastille (the 16th century fortress high overtop of Grenoble) to take in some more climbing. This country is incredible.

Climbing above Grenoble

Lots planned for the next two weeks. Quite a few museums, maybe some via ferrata action, some hiking, etc. Then next weekend we head back south for some of the last french climbing action I'll get.

Some interesting sights...

Particle accellerator in Grenoble. If you look hard you can see Dan Brown poking around...

France is scooter crazy. I don't know who bought this one, but I have to wonder how much english they know... or maybe he's just really confident.

Gotta go and enjoy the sun and mountains now...

Ps. incase your wondering my french still sucks.