April 07, 2011: Grenoble - Banking in English, Laundry

Today we went to open a French bank account. We'd been hoping to avoid the hassle (you have to call about a week ahead to set up an hour-long appointment) and expense (basic account almost 100 Euros a year), but after some back-and-forth the university insists that only a French account will do if Mark wishes to be paid. Luckily I'd been in Grenoble long enough to find out from my new friends which bank (Rhone-Alpes) and branch have English-speaking bankers. So, in about 10 days Mark will finally have an account into which money can be deposited, which we will then hurry to spend before leaving so that we can close the account. Crazy.

On the walk back you could really start to see how the city is greening up - trees that were bare branched last week have leafed out , and the grass is turning vivid green. The tulips and daffodils are almost done for already - it seems like they just bloomed, but it's been almost a month now.

Early laundry day this week - I need to make sure we have enough clothing to carry us through our trip to Lyon next week!

 

A view down the tram tracks - I love seeing a roadway covered in green!

 

These topiary trees are a shape you usually see on short bushes, but these straight-sided beasts are so tall they must be created using a crane?

April 06, 2011: Tain l'Hermitage - Bus Trip, Voiron, Car Trip, Chocolate, Wine

A new location today because we went on a road trip! I started the day by taking the Trans Isère bus to our meeting point in Voiron. This was my first time taking Trans Isère, so it was useful to get that figured out - these buses go further afield than the local TAG system, and we might want to use them to get to some hiking locations in the future.

From Voiron three carloads of people from the Sweet Home Grenoble group headed out, about an hour away, to Tain l'Hermitage. Our first stop was for a wine tasting at Cave de Tain, one of many wineries in the region. I don't think any of us were bowled over by what we tried (as some of the Australians in the group pointed out, the French taste is for fairly subtle, balanced flavours), but I bought a bottle nonetheless, so that Mark could feel like he'd had some participation in the day.

Then we had out in the sun at the riverside Nice Cafe. I had the salad La Corsica, which was an enormous plate with quadrants of different ingredients on a bed of lettuce: jambon cru, tomato, sun-dried tomato, a tiny (quail?) hard-boiled egg, couscous with raisins, corn, carrots, and feta cheese. It was delicious and filling. Luckily I had almost two hours to munch away at it. I also had kir for the first time, a popular apéritif, made with cassis liqueur and white wine. All in all it felt like a very summery lunch.

After lunch we walked down the riverside to the famous Valrhona chocolate store. There was chocolate madness in the store - free samples of all the different kinds of chocolates, a multitude of options for purchase, enticing Easter displays and lots of freebies with purchase. The town itself seemed fairly sleepy, but it was hopping inside the store.

And that was it: wine, lunch, chocolate. A perfect day.

 

The winery

 

Wisteria starting to bloom. Look closely - there's a cat asleep on top of the pillar.

 

Lunch - photo courtesy of Linda, our fearless organizer.

 

A strangely stark garage - no cars, just two pairs of tires lined up symmetrically at the entrance.

 

Cherry blossoms by the river.

 

A footbridge and distant vineyards on the slopes.

 

Mmm. Valrhona Chocolate. 

April 05, 2011: Grenoble - Open House English Coffee Chat, Travel Plans

This morning a visit with friends at Open House's English Coffee Chat. There was a debate on how many kinds of skiing there are, and what they're called. Between the French and English languages, and English-speaking folk from all around the globe, there was no consensus. 1. downhill skiing 2. cross-country skiing 3. mountain/mountaineering/back-country skiing?

And then back home to the computer to continue to plan our travels, comparing websites, reviews, top ten lists and prices. It's bizarre to remember my trip to Europe only 11 years ago, planned with the aid of just one travel book of Europe.

April 04, 2011: Grenoble - Travel Plans, English Tutoring

A fairly low-key day today. I spent most of it on the internet, researching restaurants in Lyon (we'll be there next week, and it's the culinary capital of France) and planning how to see as much of France as possible in 12 days when my mother visits in May (the line-up: Lyon, Grenoble, Annecy, Marseille, Avignon, Paris).

And then at the end of the day I returned to Anne's home for some more English tutoring practice with her daughter - we played yet another complex card game which involved yet more English explanation of the rules!

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.

April 02, 2011: Grenoble - Marché, Cuves de Sassenage

As usual we were off to the local market this morning. We returned to the same fromagerie as last week, to buy more of the new favourite Crayeuse de Savoie, as well as another new cheese, Vieux Cantal (one of the oldest French cheese varieties, from the time of the Gauls), and a different variety of sausage, Sanglier (which I picked because I didn't know what it is - turns out it's wild boar!). After getting some farm fresh eggs, fruits, vegetables, fresh spinach and ricotta pasta and two baguettes, we were ready for home. We had an early lunch of the fresh pasta, packed some charcuterie, cheese and baguette, and we were off on our daytrip - Les Cuves de Sassenage.

I've had to wait a whole month to visit the Cuves, but it was worth it! The Cuves are the closest caves to Grenoble, just a 40 minute trip by tram and bus. They don't open to the public until April 1 because water levels through the winter are too high - the caves were originally carved out by underground rivers, and parts of the caves are still filled every year by gushing torrents of water. In fact, even today we were only able to go on an abbreviated tour of the caves, but the guide told us we can come back later on the same tickets to take the full tour after those portions of the caves are water-free. The name "cuves" comes from the bowl-like areas at the outlet of the underground river from the side of the mountain - in general, caves are referred to as "grottes".

I'm not a hard-core caver - I don't want to have to squish through spaces where I might worry about geting stuck - but I was hoping for a sense of being in an unusual space, and this was just the right cave system. There were plenty of places where we had to stoop low or carefully climb up steep narrow steps, contrasted with tall passageways and large rooms. I can't wait to go back to visit the other parts, which sound like they are even larger cathedral-like galleries. As well, those are the caves that will have stalactites and stalagmites - there weren't any in the areas we visited today, since the regular flooding washes these formations away just as they get started. Also, no cave prehistoric cave paintings, although there are plenty of other caves throughout France that do have them.

The weather today was beautiful (23 degrees Celsius and very sunny) so we were hoping to spend more time outside. As it turned out, the area around the caves was perfect for a rambling hike - we followed a river (not the same one that carved the caves out of the mountain), which rushed through gorges, tumbled over cliffs as a waterfall, and spread out in a large pool as a reservoir. I think it may be the most scenic river I've ever walked alongside.

When we'd finished exploring as much of the river as we could follow, we turned back into the historic village of Sassenage, where the old stone buildings were crowded so closely together that many of the streets were one-lane only and hardly anything more than a narrow curb for a sidewalk. The alleyways were even named as streets, with signs pointing out that only bike and motorcycle traffic are allowed along them (no room for either cars or pedestrians). Not far away was the Chateau de Sassenage, a small castle/large mansion set in a large, walled park. The house wasn't open to visitors at this time of day, but we enjoyed walking around the beautiful grounds.

After an easy transit ride home we had a hearty meal: lentils with caramelized onions, sautéed carrots and green beans, concentrated chicken stock, and a few diced slices of our new sausage. With a bottle of red French wine of course!

 

While waiting for our cave tour to start a woman with a ferret on a leash walked up - even from afar you could tell it was a ferret by the way it moved about

 

Following Mark (and our tour guide) into the depths of the caves

 

The Germe River - not flowing as furiously here as it was in other passages

 

The Germe, pouring forth at the exit from the caves

 

We spotted adventurers of some type heading down to the Furon River (they seemed to be in wetsuits)

 

Alongside the river were large, crumbling stoneworks, from a time when the source of the Sassenage village's water came from up here on the mountain

 

Backlit maple leaves, just starting to come forth this week (finally - it's been warm enough for spring since we got here!)

 

The river, flowing through a gorge

 

Beautiful green forest floor, with a sheer cliff face in the background

 

As we walked along the river we came across a group of teenagers dressed as Star Wars characters, with light sabres and a video camera. We hummed and whistled the theme music the rest of the afternoon

 

The Furon, as a lovely, tall waterfall

 

The Furon, as a series of small falls cascading over a crescent-shaped shelf of rock

 

A rock, entirely embedded in a tree that (for some crazy reason!) has been growing around it for years

 

The historic village of Sassenage, with the Furon and Germe rivers channeled in a canal

 

An alleyway, marked as "Chemin de la Passerelle" (which translates as "Road Bridge"), with only motorcycles and bicycles permitted

 

A stone lion takes a bite out of me at the historic Chateau de Sassenage

 

Precise topiary, in line with precise rooftop peak  - I do love symmetry

 

One of many huge trees in the ground of the Chateau

April 01, 2011: Grenoble - Bon Anniversaire Ma Soeur, French Philosophy, Last of the Caves, Chinese/Cambodian Food, Poisson Avril

Bon Anniversaire Ma Soeur! Today is Heather's birthday. 

Today was my first time at a different French/English exchange group which is organized more as a "class". We all sat around one large table for discussion, and since the group was about three quarters French, it was good practice for me. The topic was "happiness", with questions posed, answers debated, and people taking turns going around the table to respond.

After that I finally finished reading Jean Auel's "The Painted Caves". What an abysmal novel. Clearly the author made far too much money early on in the series for her editor to have any power over her at this point - 90% of the book should have been cut, because it reiterated the same stories, characters and scenarios over and over. I could tell only 10% of the way in what I was letting myself in for, but I just couldn't give up part ways through - I slogged through the gargantuan book, desperately hoping for some sort of plot. Even the descriptions of the prehistoric cave paintings became painfully boring, as each one was described in mind-numbing detail - as a travel guide to cave paintings, this would fail.

For dinner we went to Phnom Penh, a Chinese/Cambodian restaurant just down the street. It's one of the more upscale Chinese restaurants I've ever been to (I've never been to a Cambodian one; it's difficult to know what aspects were Cambodian). The food had more kick than our Indian dining of week before, but still wasn't as good as we could get along Spadina - and it was more expensive. But we enjoyed debating the mystery ingredients on the French-language menu: St. Jacques (squid?) and gamba (prawns).

And I found out that April Fool's Day is Poisson Avril in France (courtesy of Maureen's blog about life in Grenoble). Stores sell fish-shaped chocolates, and children have only one prank to play - sticking paper fish on each others' backs, and yelling out "Poisson Avril" when it's discovered.