Car Hire in Grenoble, France
Attractively found on the Drac and Isère rivers, and circled by mountains,
Grenoble is a lively, thriving, modern city, the place to find a university of over 35,000 students. The city's immense success was formerly started on glove-making, however in the 19th decade, its economy diversified to incorporate mining, cement, paper mills, hydroelectric power ("white coal", as they simply referred to it as) and metallurgy. Nowadays, it is a centre of chemical and electronics industries and nuclear research, with all the massive, new laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission about the banks of the Drac.
Grenoble has been specifically at the forefront of social, environmental and cultural innovation, particularly over the twenty-year mayoralty of Hubert Dubedout, who was killed in a climbing accident in 1986. His Villeneuve housing project (between avenue Jean-Jaurès and cours de la Libération), though tatty and of ill repute today, began as a possible idealistic endeavor to provide integrated living space for an entire mix of social classes, including Arab together with other immigrant workers, along with open schooling and also of community-based programmes. The current mayor, previously Chirac's environment minister, has revived one of Dubedout's ideas in the construction of the city's pride and joy, its pollution-free tram network.
The easiest way to start your stay is to take the
téléférique (Jan to mid-March & Nov-Dec daily 11am-6.30pm; mid-March to May & October Mon 11am-7.30pm, Tues-Sat 9.45am-midnight, Sun 9.15am-7.30pm; June & Sept Mon 11am-midnight, Tues-Sat 9.15am-midnight, Sun 9.15am-7.30pm; July & Aug Mon 11am-12.30am, Tues-Sun 9.15am-12.30am; 35F/?5.34 single) from the riverside quai Stéphane-Jay to Fort de la Bastille over the steep slopes around the north bank of the Isère. The ride is hair-raising, if you're whisked steeply and swiftly into the air in a somewhat like transparent egg that enables you to see very clearly how far you might fall in case of any sort of accident. Unless you prefer the sound of the cable car, you could climb the nice yet steep footpath from the St-Laurent church.
Even though the fort is of little interest, the scene is impressive. To your feet the Isère, milky-grey and swollen with snow-melt, tears at the piles of the old bridges which link with the St-Laurent quarter, colonized by Italian immigrants in the 19th century, towards the nucleus of the medieval town, whose red roofs cluster tightly surrounding the church of St-André. To the far east, snowfields gleam in the gullies of the Belledonne massif (2978m). Southeast is Taillefer and south-southeast dips the location where the Route Napoléon passes within the mountains to Sisteron and also the Mediterranean - this is actually the road Napoléon took after his escape from Elba in March 1815 on his way to rally his forces for the campaign that resulted in his final defeat at Waterloo. To the western part are the steep white cliffs of the Vercors massif; the highest peak, dominating the city, is Moucherotte (1901m). The jagged peaks at your back are the outworks of the Chartreuse massif. Northeast over a clear day, you could set eyes on the white peaks of Mont Blanc along the deep glacial valley of the Isère, also known as La Grésivaudan. Finally it was on this valley that the first French hydroelectric project went into action in 1869. Heading back to town, there exists a pleasant path down into the public gardens.
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