Edd's Travels: Grenoble, France

Before arriving in Grenoble I checked the local weather forecast, and all it told me was: 'Moderate Avalanche Warning'. Thanks guys.

When my first Spain trip began in January 2017, I was already past forty, but it was the first time that I'd ever gone to sunnier climes during winter. Straight away I realised that going to sunnier climes during winter was an absolute no-brainer. Nothing lifts the mood like feeling the sun on your face. This is one reason why, on this trip, I've been heading south as fast as the TGV will take me.

That said, Grenoble is a fair way above sea level and it's been pretty chilly. Snow-capped Alps loom at the end of every street. And one inevitable sacrifice when travelling in winter is that the photos are never quite as good as the views. But I'm here for the memories, not the photos. Also, everything is much more pleasant when you avoid the high-season crowds.

While here I had one properly sunny day and I devoted it to exploring a small town called Vizille, a half-hour bus ride to the south. (People from Vizille are called Vizillois. This is the kind of detailed local knowledge that you never get until you're researching your travel blog on Wikipedia.) See pictures below. It's nice to get out of the big cities and I will try to do more of this in the weeks to come, even if I have to hire a left-hand-drive car in which to do it.

Grenoble is one of five French communes that were honoured by De Gaulle for their particularly active part in the Resistance during WW2. Back home in the UK, while we rightly revere the memories of the Blitz Spirit and the Battle of Britain, it's important to remember that it takes a whole new level of spirit to keep fighting back when the enemy is literally knocking at your front door.

Obviously the memorials and the monuments here are annotated tactfully. They don't refer to Germany or to the German people. But at the same time, they don't cover things up. I saw a plaque in Dijon paying tribute to the 'victimes de la barbarie Nazi'. There are no bland platitudes about 'the fallen', as if what happened during 1939-1945 was a natural disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami. We should always call things by their real names. Because the same thing might come back one day, and we never quite know which direction it'll come from; and from a British perspective, when you remind yourself who makes up the five permanent members of the UN security council, it fans the flames of Francophilia a bit. As does being here, and eating their food, and drinking their wine. Vive la France.

Looking east from the Bastille. About the same climb as Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.
That little blotch of reflected orange sunlight on the horizon, left of centre...
It's Mont Blanc, France's tallest mountain, roughly 70 miles away to the north-east.