We took one of the high speed TGV trains so the ride was only about three hours and the scenery was gorgeous. We rolled into Grenoble and walked through town until we found the tourism office to get a map and the maison de la montagne to ask about hiking trails. Then we walked around Grenoble and found some great one euro (!!!) pizza and explored the town. We hadn't made any hotel reservations but we managed to find a nice, cheap place in the center of town.
The exploring continued as we started climbing the Bastille, an old fort up in the mountains. There is a museum in the fort devoted to Alpine soldiers and a restaurant and a gift shop at the top. We must have hiked and explored for about six hours, but since it was an impromptu trip I was wearing my Toms which were not a good choice! It was gloriously rainy and beautiful but the hike down was a little scary considering the lack of tread on my shoes. I managed to only slip down one flight of stairs! That evening we took the telepherique (crazy egg-shaped gondola) back to the top of the Bastille to check out the city at night, and then found an entire street completely dedicated to pizza! Everything was so cheap compared to Paris, it was fantastic.
The telepherique!
View from the top
The next morning we decided to take a bus up to one of the small mountain towns and do some more hiking. We bought bus tickets and headed for Chamrousse, altitude 1650 m, and home to both the 1968 winter olympics and the mountain stage of the 2001 tour de france! The bus dropped us off amid the snowy paradise of mountains and ski lifts. We were so excited to see snow and really be in the Alps! When we got off the bus, I asked the driver when the last bus left. He replied in french (of course) and said 5:35, repeating it several times. When we bought our tickets in Grenoble, they didn't tell us anything about the return so we assumed our tickets were two-way. After hiking the length of one chairlift and exploring the town for a while, we went into one of the tiny restaurants to get a coffee. It must have been near freezing, because it snowed while we were up there. I had to buy a hat because my ears were so cold! Neither Sarah nor I had a phone or any other sort of time telling device, so we were a little worried about missing the bus. We were sitting in the cafe at 5:15 when Sarah saw the bus drive by. We both started to freak out, immediately imagining that we would either have to hitchhike or walk the 30 km back to Grenoble. We found a sign by the bus stop that had times on it, and it also said 5:15. I couldn't believe I had misunderstood the bus driver and gotten us stranded! Then we realized that there were TWO buses that ran to Chamrousse, and we had seen the other one leave. We got on our bus at 5:35, but when we sat down the driver came and asked us for our tickets. We were the only two on the bus, and when we gave him the tickets we had purchased in Grenoble he told us we needed different tickets! Luckily, we were able to buy tickets from him and after a few scares we made it back to Grenoble!
Our train left at 6 am on monday so we got up early and headed back to Paris! Quite a whirlwind weekend. But the trip made me realize how it easy it is to leave the city and do some exploring! I'm already thinking about the next places I'd like to go.
On another note, today marks four weeks in France!! I can't believe I've already been here so long.
No comments:
Post a Comment