A Year on Sabbatical: April 23, 2011: Grenoble

Saturday, April 23, 2011

April 23, 2011: Grenoble - Noyarey Up & Down, Wine

Today they were calling for rain, so I was being cautious in our plans for an outing - maybe a garden in the city, with a museum nearby that we could retreat to. But when we got outside it was so beautifully sunny that I changed course, and we headed out to the hills by public transit. I picked a new walk from our Guide de Balades, the handy guide published by the transit network that explains how to get to various walking trails (so marvellous - both that there's so many trails within city limits and that they're publicized so well - the signage on all of the trails is great too - you don't really need to know where you are, just pick a destination and follow the signs).

In the village of Noyarey we headed up. And up and up and up. The trail headed up a ridge without any switchbacks - just a steep grade of loose stones that I dreaded walking down if it started to rain (I'm sure the path would have become a torrent). Even though the trail was a bit mind-numbing in its single-minded ascent the views back down to the city where great, and we were mostly shaded by trees. As we got higher we kept checking the progress of the clouds, and finally decided to turn back when we reached some horses in a pasture. I was happy to get back to the bottom without any rain.

We hopped on the bus, got off at the transfer for the tram, and popped inside the nearby hypermarché for some wine. We thought we were buying expensive wine on special (2 for 18 Euros), but it turned out we got inexpensive wine (2 cases for 18 Euros - and we only picked up 2 bottles). Since wine is so reasonably priced here (you can get it cheaper than orange juice) we've vowed to start buying more expensive varieties - we'll never be able to afford them back in Ontario. But we didn't make much progress on our vow today!