Annecy Thursday

There was a tram stop only a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, so getting into the centre of Grenoble was easy. We headed for the river (Isère, there are 2 rivers in Grenoble) to look at a nice old suspension bridge that we passed coming in. Grenoble is in a valley at an altitude of 204m, surrounded by mountains.

We also noticed last night, that there was a cable car from the city side of the river, across and up to La Bastille, an ancient series of fortifications on the mountainside overlooking Grenoble on the northern side. How could we not take the cable car to the top, at 498 m. The views over Grenoble were stunning.

On the way to the cable car, we saw this theatre with tromp l'oeil paintings.

 

By now it was almost 1pm and, given that there may be other necessary stops on the way, we left Grenoble. We managed to drive for ½ hour before having to stop. There was this almost unbelievable funicular railway, so we did a quick u turn and went back to have a look. Well, we couldn’t just look could we. It took 20 minutes to climb 700m and is 1480 metres long. It was put into service in 1924 and the cable is 38mm diameter. At stages, the slope is 83% (about 40 degrees), almost scary and the track goes through a tunnel. I’m sure we’ll never see anything like this again. The photos don’t do the real thing justice.

So, an hour or so later, with a good 2 ½  hours of driving ahead, we continued on to Annecy. Lots of traffic and many vehicles on the 2 way road, not wanting to get up to the speed limit so we just had to be patient. Stopped on the way for some wine and found the same Côtes du Rhône rosé we tried a couple of nights ago and really liked. Blog almost finished and wine almost open.