Bienvenue à Grenoble

Under clear sunny skies, our taxi wound its way from Sestriere down through Cesana Torinese into the Susa Valley. Unlike our journey up, it was mid morning and we admired the wonderful views of the Italian Alps during this 25 minute trip to Oulx.

With plenty of time to spare, we lounged around Oulx train station patiently waiting. Not wanting to be too rushed, we ventured outside hauling our 100kg of luggage before the train arrived. Our plan involved the girls being responsible for the day packs and hopping on the train first while Andy and I had our backpacks plus Andy took the ski bag while I had the suitcase.

The train arrived jammed packed luckily though most travellers disembarked probably heading to the snow. As the carriage cleared, we climbed the steep steps up on to the train rangling our luggage onboard. With no baggage area, Andy stayed with the bags while the girls and I found seats together. Luckily this was only a 20 minute journey to Modane where we would switch trains. On this leg of our journey we crossed over the border into France during the 13km long Frejus rail tunnel.

Our connection in Modane was 25 minutes and thus we were confident of making this. Turns out the train was on the opposite side of the platform. With no crowds we took our time to climb the even steeper stairs and find a compartment that fitted us and all of our luggage in. We had time to relax for an hour, eat lunch and enjoy the wonderful mountain panoramas.

The next part of the journey to Grenoble was highly uncertain with only a 5 minute connection. Already this looked impossible given the difficulty of moving quickly with the large load but also we discovered that the train we were on was running late. The upside was that trains to Grenoble ran every 30 minutes so we wouldn't have long to wait if we did miss our connection - but we were unsure whether our ticket would even be valid to do this.

Arriving in Chambery, we made it out of the train only just (my pack got stuck on the narrow doorway and Andy had to rescue the suitcase). We were on platform A and the Grenoble train was departing form platform E, so it was a sprint down two flights of stairs, along a short distance then back up again. Phew we'd made it with enough time to buy a bottle of water!

The Grenoble train (which was fortunately late too) rolled in. We had picked the perfect spot - right in front of the bike carriage area making loading very easy - no steps and heaps of space for our luggage. The ride down the Gresivaudan valley to Grenoble was beautiful with the steep limestone cliffs of the Chartreuse mountains towering above. The girls couldn't understand our fascination with the scenery only occasionally glancing up from their iPads at our request.

The train stopped briefly at the Universite Grenobles Alpes before pulling into the Grenoble train station. Disembarking at Grenoble, we waited for the crowd to disperse before we were spotted by Yves. We are renting his apartment for our 4 month stay and he kindly offered to pick us up. After a small walk to his car, we managed to squish all of our luggage and ourselves into his car. It was a short drive to the apartment.


Yves found a car park close to the apartment. As he opened the graffiti covered old door into a narrow dark flight of stairs, which then led to an even narrower, winding staircase, we'd wondered what we had got ourselves into. Through several heavy metal doors, we arrived at the apartment.

Yves opened the door, took off his shoes and entered the apartment and as in Rome....we followed suit. The luggage was deposited in the dressing room (wardrobe area) adjacent to the front door. From here one could access the bathroom (including washing machine) and separate toilet. They all looked nice and clean. Up a small flight of stairs the apartment opened into a well lit and colourful (purple) living space and kitchen. Two bay like windows over looked the Isere river and towards town. Opening the window, we could see the baubles of the cable car docking and leaving for the Bastille. The two bedrooms separated by a study nock came off this area. We all sighed with relief. This apartment looked perfect!

 

 

The dressing room aka wardrobe for all of us!

The apartment from across the Isere river

The remainder of the afternoon involved settling in (unpacking), a trip to the local supermache (aren't the trolleys cute) and recovering from today's journey.