May 30, 2019 Rest Day Grenoble

Today was a rest day in Grenoble so we were slow getting rolling today. The main thing we all wanted to do was to take the gondola to the bastille at the top of hill on the opposite side of the river.  This is the second generation gondola and has become iconic with Grenoble. It is 635 m long and rises 235 meters.

The gondola originally opened in 1934 and the iconic bubbles were installed 1976.  The bastille at the top was constructed in 1825 and was one of a series of defense works which were constructed at that time.   Today there is a museum, café and a gift shop at the top.   The gondola runs year round and attracts 600,000 annual visitors.

The Airbnb condo we are staying at is only 2 blocks from the gondola so it was an easy walk over to the Gondola. We were there at opening bell at 10:30 am.  Each of the bubbles takes 6 people so we had a car to ourselves.  Once the bubbles clear the station they move at 6 meters per second which is surprisingly fast.  

The view from the top is amazing as you are totally surrounded by the mountains.  We were so luck as the day before it was so windy and cold.  Today was warm and sunny.  There was some haze but not very much. 

We took the museum tour which told the story of the French Mountain Grenadier Units. You were given a set of headphones which told the story of the mountain units through their history from the earliest units which were formed in the 1890’s through WWI, WW2 and their deployment in special UN forces.  It was very well done.  

By now it was lunch time and we headed down to the main town and found a great local place. The plat de jour was meat balls and chips which was surprisingly good.  

The crew is pretty tired and it was decided that we would take the train from Grenoble down to Lus-la-Croix-Haute rather than ride our bikes.  This cuts 74kms and 1600 meters climb off of tomorrows ride. This will leave only 49 kms and 330 meters of climb for tomorrows ride.  So we walked down to the train station to confirm that we could in fact take the train and buy our tickets.  The tickets turned out to cost us only 11.50 Euros each.  

Grenoble is such a pretty city we really enjoyed our visit here.
  

Terry