April 03, 2011: Grenoble - Marché, Suspension Bridge

New purchase from the market - Spanish strawberries! You could smell them from several feet away. They're not quite as sweet as fresh Ontario strawberries, but they are strongly strawberry-tasting. Today there were also musicians playing typically French music on accordions. Last week there were clowns. The market is just one big delicious party.

As we debated what to do in the afternoon, and how to get there, we got a call from Sheree to head out in the car with her and her husband, Bob, to Lac Monteynard, where there are two suspension bridges. That decided it! The lake is an artificial water reservoir for a power station on the Drac River. I read later that the suspension bridges were only built in 2007, and are a Himalayan-type design. Although they are long, thin and high, with a fair bit of sway, they were so obviously new that it felt secure walking across them. The hike was warm and sunny - 23 degrees Celsius and longish stretches without shade. This is spring verging on feeling like summer!

 

Strawberries, in a lovely little wood grain-printed cardboard box (we saw some that were parked in precisely regimented rows)

 

Fishermen, down by the shore of the oddly milky turquoise water of Lac Monteynard

 

More fishermen, who would have trecked a long way to get out to that point

 

The first of the two suspension bridges - Passerelle de l'Ébron - 180m long

 

Sheree carries Einzel across the bridge - Einzel doesn't like bridges at the best of times

 

The thinly-drawn lines of this bridge diagram make it seem all the more precarious...

 

Dramatic canyon of the Drac

 

The bridge, like a spider web

 

Mark and I posed at the starting point of the bridge

  

This is a photo of the bar at the end of our street, Loco Mosquito. I've been waiting to get a photo of it, but there's always a car parked in front, blocking the elaborately painted pull-down metal door. At least today it's a small Renault instead of a big car.