Mountain Travels Part I : Grenoble

Well I haven't blogged much lately because I've been so busy entertaining friends and traveling. It's been a fun couple of weeks. First my friends Reed and Regina visited Matt and I in Privas for 3 days. We had a good time taking them to the sites in Privas and Coux, going on walks, making great meals and playing board games. It was really nice to have friends visit us here.

Then on New Years Eve all four of us traveled to Grenoble to spend the day/night. We were very lucky with the weather and were able to see the mountains all around Grenoble. On New Years Day Matt and I traveled to Geneva Switzerland, followed by short trips to Montreaux Switzerland, and Annecy France. It was a nice week away. I took nearly 300 pictures and have so many I want to share, that I'll probably split the pictures up into several blogs, one for each location.

I hope everyone had a nice New Years!

Here are pictures of our New Years Eve Day in Grenoble.


This is a view from our nice little hotel located in downtown Grenoble. From this vantage point we got to watch a caravan of drunken French teenagers drive down the street waving champagne bottles out their windows, do Chinese firedrills, party on top of their cars and drive down the street backwards. It was funny only because we were above their cars and not on the street! Definitely one of the most entertaining new years sites I've ever seen.



We wandered around downtown a bit and found this beautiful church. Matt was happy to see the church. During the whole summer he lived in Grenoble he had never found it open.



We rode the telepherique up to the Bastille, which is an old prison and fortifications high above the city of Grenoble. Matt used to climb up to the Bastille a lot during his time in Grenoble so was a very good tour guide. The sky was absolutely gorgeous when we got to the top and we had amazing views of the 3 mountain ranges that surround Grenoble.









On our way down the mountain we stopped in a series of caves that peered out onto the city. The caves led down into staircases built into the mountain. We then proceeded down the mountain and the views of the city just kept getting more and more beautiful.











When we were down from the mountain we were lucky to catch a bit of alpen glow on the mountains as the sun was setting. Quite a pretty scene in a beautiful city.





I enjoyed Grenoble a great deal and really understand why Matt loves this city so much.