Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Grenoble on a Sunny Spring Day

Paris is chic, beautiful and busy. Sporting elegant architecture, museums on every corner, and food which people travel thousands of miles to sample, Paris is a place of self-importance.

Grenoble then is the backwards cousin who has no appreciation for the so-called finer things in life and prefers hiking boots to high heels and tartiflette to tartare de boeuf. 

This simple, alpine city will never match the Parisian way of life; its architecture, food, effortless style and elegance. But I wouldn't want it any other way. 

Grenoble has embedded itself so deeply into my heart that I can't imagine living in France and not being here. Weekends in the Chartreuse, Sunday morning cycling around Alpe d'Huez and the Col de la Croix de Fer, backcountry ski outings before work. A life that revolve around skiing, climbing, hiking, cycling in a city that is surrounded by peaks; comforting sentinels with their jagged edges softened by snow. 

And as I rambled through town on a Saturday morning, I stopped to pick up a pain au chocolat before roaming aimlessly through the morning markets. I hiked up to the top of the Bastille and looked out over the town. Families were picnicking in the field behind the ruined fort, students grilled out, and others like me were simply sitting on their own and enjoying the view. 

Grenoble isn't Paris. But I love it all the same.

Isère river


View from the Bastille 

Téléphérique up to the Bastille

Walking along the Isère

Place Victor Hugo 


1 comment:

Shopgirl said...

I love Genoble too but I've never been. There (once in a lifetime ago) once was a potential job situation that could've put me there. So I dreamed of going and looked up all about it. I thought I would really love it there!

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