Grenoble is a city and commune in south-east France situated at the foot of the
Alps where the Drac joins the Isère River.
Located in the Rhône-Alpes région, Grenoble is the préfecture (capital) of the département of Isère.
The proximity of the moutains make the city named "Capital of Alps" by french people.
The population of the city (commune) of Grenoble at the 1999 census was 153,317 inhabitants
(157,900 inhabitants estimated as of February 2004 ).
The population of the whole metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine) at the 1999 census was
514,559 inhabitants and 560,222 inhabitants at the 2007 estimate.
Among the numerous communes included are the city's largest suburbs,
Saint-Martin-d'Hères, Échirolles, and Fontaine, each with a population exceeding 20,000 inhabitants.
read full wikipedia reference about Grenoble, France
• Arrival,
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Beautifully situated on
the Drac and Isère rivers, and surrounded by mountains,
GRENOBLE is a lively, thriving, modern city, home to a
university of more than 35,000 students. The city's prosperity
was originally founded on glove-making, but in the nineteenth
century its economy diversified to include mining, cement, paper
mills, hydroelectric power ("white coal", as they called
it) and metallurgy. Today, it is a centre of chemical and electronics
industries and nuclear research, with the big, new laboratories
of the Atomic Energy Commission on the banks of the Drac.
The best way to start your
stay is to take the téléférique (Jan to
mid-March & Nov-Dec daily 11am-6.30pm; mid-March to May &
Oct 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) from the riverside quai Stéphane-Jay to
Fort de la Bastille on the steep slopes above the north bank
of the Isère. The ride is hair-raising, as you are whisked
steeply and swiftly into the air in a sort of transparent egg,
which allows you to see very clearly how far you would fall in
the event of an accident. If you don't like the sound of the
cable car, you can climb the pleasant but steep footpath from
the St-Laurent church .
Although the fort is of
little interest, the view is fantastic. At your feet the Isère,
milky-grey and swollen with snow-melt, tears at the piles of
the old bridges which join the St-Laurent quarter, colonized
by Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century, to the nucleus
of the medieval town, whose red roofs cluster tightly around
the church of St-André. To the east, snowfields gleam
in the gullies of the Belledonne massif (2978m). Southeast is
Taillefer and south-southeast the dip where the Route Napoléon
passes over the mountains to Sisteron and the Mediterranean -
this is the road Napoléon took after his escape from Elba
in March 1815 on his way to rally his forces for the campaign
that led to his final defeat at Waterloo. To the west 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 on a clear
day you can see the white peaks of Mont Blanc up the deep glacial
valley of the Isère, known as La Grésivaudan. It
was in this valley that the first French hydroelectric project
went into action in 1869. Heading back into town, there's a pleasant
path down through the public gardens.
Upstream from the téléférique
station is the sixteenth-century Palais de Justice (open to the
public), with place St-André and the church of St-André
behind. Built in the thirteenth century and heavily restored,
the church is of little architectural interest, but the narrow
streets leading back towards places Grenette, Vaucanson and Verdun
take you through the liveliest and most colourful quarter of
the city. Life focuses on a chain of little squares - aux Herbes,
Claveyson, de Gordes, Grenette and Notre-Dame - where people
congregate at the numerous cafés and restaurants. The
small produce market (Tues-Sun 6am-1pm) on place aux Herbes is
a great place to stock up on inexpensive local produce.
Close to place St-André,
in the former town hall at 1 rue Hector-Berlioz, in the corner
of the Jardin de Ville gardens, is the Musée Stendhal
(mid-July to mid-Sept Tues-Sat 9am-noon & 2-6pm; rest of
year Tues-Sat 10am-noon, closed all hols; free), with one dusty
room of objects associated with the author, who was born in Grenoble
as Marie-Henri Beyle. You can also visit his grandfather's house,
where he spent his childhood, at 20 Grand-Rue, just to the south
(same hours; free)
On the east side of the
bustling place Notre-Dame, Grenoble's newest museum, L'Ancien
Évêché (Mon & Thurs-Sun 9am-7pm, Wed
9am-9pm; 20F/?3.05), housed in the old bishop's palace, offers
a fleeting retrospective of Grenoble's history from the Stone
Age to the seventeenth century. Among its prized exhibits are
a good sixteenth-century triptych retable, known as the Tours
de Pins , and a disappointing early Christian baptistery.
Other museums of note are
the Musée de Grenoble , by the river at 5 place de Lavalette
(Mon & Thurs-Sun 11am-7pm, Wed 11am-10pm), and the Musée
Dauphinois , 30 rue Maurice-Gignoux (daily except Tues: May-Oct
10am-7pm; rest of year 10am-6pm), on the far bank of the Isère.
The former is an enormous modern complex housing a gallery of
mainly contemporary art. The building itself is impressive, but
the collection is uneven, with many major schools of painting
represented, though mostly by second-rate works. The best rooms
are those of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists (for example,
Chagal and Matisse), but the contemporary section is marked by
the mediocre work of local artists. The Musée Dauphinois
lies up a cobbled path opposite the St-Laurent footbridge. Housed
in the former convent of Ste-Marie-d'en-Haut, it is largely devoted
to the history, arts and crafts of the province of Dauphiné;
unlike neighbouring Savoie which was annexed only in 1860, Dauphiné
has been French since the fourteenth century. There are exhibits
on the life of the mountain people, les gens de là-haut
("the people from up there"), who (like most poor mountaineers)
were obliged to travel the world as pedlars and knife-grinders.
Many, too, were involved in smuggling, and there is a fascinating
collection of body-hugging flasks used for contraband liquor.
A well-produced audio-visual show, the Roman des Grenoblois ,
recounts the social and industrial history of the city, including
the foundation of France's first trade union in 1803 by local
glove-makers.
Also on the rer's right
bank, a few minutes' walk east of the Musée Dauphinoise,
the Musée Archéologique Église St-Laurent
, on place St-Laurent (Wed-Sun 9am-noon & 2-6pm), is, for
design and originality, Grenoble's best museum, and enjoyable
both for adults and children. The history of the city is explained
as you descend through various stages of excavations in this
former church, passing through an early Christian necropolis,
a high medieval cloister and an eighth-century crypt.
To the south of the old
town lies the Parc Paul-Mistral , to one side of which is the
Hôtel de Ville (1967), one of the earliest of France's
now numerous and bold architectural experiments with its public
buildings. In the park behind is an earlier and more frivolous
structure, an 87-metre concrete tower designed in 1925 by Perret,
one of the pioneers of avant-garde French architecture. The concrete
looks shabby now and you could hardly call it attractive, but
it is bold and unapologetically modern.
Across the road from the
town hall, standing among the fine trees of the Jardin des Plantes
is the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle (Mon & Wed-Sat
9.30am-noon & 1.30-5.30pm, Sun 2-6pm). It has a marvellous
collection, though it's very badly displayed; and it includes
all the Alpine birds of prey. Wedged between the park and the
old town, you'll find the Musée des Troupes de Montagne
at 19 rue Hébert (Mon-Fri 10am-noon & 2-5.30pm; free),
a small museum devoted to the French mountain regiment, the Chasseurs
Alpins. Just down the street at no. 14 is the Musée de
la Résistance et de la Déportation (July &
Aug 10am-6pm; rest of year Mon & Wed-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat &
Sun 10am-6pm), with a touching exhibition of photographs and
memorabilia from the brutal Nazi occupation of the Dauphiné.
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