Grenoble (Days 1 and 2)

On Saturday morning, Joe and I headed to Gare de Lyon to catch a train to Grenoble. Which is here:




I was invited to a conference/workshop there along with the other fellowship people who are currently in France. There are 2 others in Paris that have been here the whole time I've been here and we didn't even know it! The conference was hosted here on Monday and Tuesday. We arrived earlier to do some sightseeing! Saturday was very rainy so we didn't get to do much.

Grenoble is at the foot of the French alps so there are mountains all around it. Grenoble is actually a very flat city and then at the edges there are suddenly mountains. On Sunday, there were a lot of clouds but you can see the snowcapped peaks in the distance above the clouds in this picture.

 We rode the cable car up to the Bastille, an old fortress partway up a mountain on the north side of the city.





The view from here was incredible!

Yay.

 From the Bastille, we hiked further up to the summit of Mont Jalla where there are some ruins and a military memorial.

After a confusing hike back down to the city, we had lunch. Here is my awesome delicious schwarma veau next to Joe's perfectly adequate panini de saumon.

We walked through the city, there were a lot of different fountains.

We visited Parc Mistral and another park just north of it where we saw these adorable guys napping.

Fantastic view from the hotel, here are the mountains at sunset.

There seems to be a French version of MXC! Which was awesome but not as awesome as MXC. Yes, those are four people dressed like penguins trying to balance on an inner tube.