Meylan, not Milan!

Europe » France » Rhône-Alpes » Grenoble
August 6th 2008

Published: August 6th 2008

Alooorrrssss.

We're back to tell you about Grenoble, because it is vying for first place on our list of favorite cities, without a doubt.

Wait, that's not fair. Michel and I, we say, everytime that we get to a new city: "Oui, on est très bien ici, à ...."
And we mean it! Simply, I think travelling is the thrill of variety and constancy of change. Everytime we get off a train, we breathe a breath of fresh air and our minds are refreshed. This time, to Grenoble, it is no different.

Unfortunately, our three weeks spent in Verneuil were not as physically stimulating as they were intellectually, but our first day in Grenoble made up for that! Vincent, my dear friend, of four years, picked us up at the Grenoble train station (after our first ride on the TGV! Train à grande vitesse) and immediately, we were enchanted by the city.

And the ALPS, no less!

I've seen the Alps before; on the orchestra trip to Austria and Germany last year, in fact, but somehow they struck much more this time. Vincent's family lives not right in Grenoble, but in a beautiful little suburb known as Meylan (NOT Milan, as we had to tell numerous people), just a few kilometres from the city centre. A house of immaculate elegance (and a family to go with it!) awaited us. We were served an incredible dinner on the terrace and spent some time in their pool.

Imagine: swimming and lounging in your backyard with the Alps full frontal.

(Don't worry, I won't ask you to imagine anymore once we have the pictures up from the past few days!)

Plus, Vincent, being the talented boy he is, not only has an alpine chateau, but his very own 18th-century French harpsichord, a Yamaha grand piano, AND a nord keyboard! Needless to say, we are a bit in heaven.

Of course, we had to work as well. No no, it wasn't all play. Yesterday morning, Vincent came by our hotel (a very chic one that his parents generously paid for!) and brought us to buy shoes for hiking.

But of course, you're in the Alps, dear. What else are you gonna do?

So, he drove us up into the mountains, giving us a head start of 1300m on a mountain with an elevation of 1700m. Still, nothing to smirk at! It was a fantastically fun hike. The weather

... excuse me. I was just interrupted by a the sound of Vincent and Michel jamming on the nord and the Yamaha downstairs. And being the newly designated photographer AND music director of this European tour, I had to check out the scene.

Ah, life is hard; that's what we say.

Any which way, the weather was nice and cool, which got us through our hike in a good hour. Vince convinced us to go down the mountain directly, slipping and sliding our way down to where we'd parked. Ben, j'ai eu pas mal de "splinters," but it was good fun. Lunch was had at a beautiful mountain village. Afterwards, Vince brought us to a magnificent waterfall in another part of the mountains. And here we climbed, we frolicked under the waterfall, we had a little siesta by the brook, we devoured milkshakes and ice creams, and Michel and I had our first taste of Génépy at the snack cabin, the owner forcing upon us a little shot glass full of this potent alcohol. Whew! Dry as nothing you've tasted before; boy, was it strong! Of course, it made everything a little bit more fun afterwards - we got our own little area on the terrace to play cards, snack, and play a guitar we found lounging against a fence.

Then it was time to eat. Again! This time, Vince took us up almost to the summit of another mountain by car, to visit this little restaurant famous for being famous, I suppose, since it sits at something like 1600m in altitude. A big salad and two cheese fondues later, we were absolutely .. satiated, to say the least. The owner, who knew Vincent, gave us some of his home made liquor at the end of the meal, despite my argument, to which he simply replied in a rather diabolical English: "Do not talk with me. You must drink."

All in good humour, of course.

We rushed back down the mountain afterwards, all a bit giddy, and went into town to see the last showing of the evening at the theatre of Wall-E! Which, all of you from Verneuil know, we'd tried arduously to seein Verneuil, but never had the chance to... It's a charming little flick. Check it out.

So our day was long, but definitely well-spent. Vincent ammened us back to our hotel early in the morning, and we fell asleep almost before we opened the door to our hotel room...

Our next set of plans, starting today, were supposed to be to meet our friend Phillipe in Geneva. So, when we woke up, we dutifully called him to make sure everything was going ahead as planned.

"Ah, bonjour. May I speak to Phillipe, please?"
"I'm sorry, madame, the ambassador and Phillipe are away right now."
"Oh! Do you know when he'll be back?"
"Well, they're in Budapest.... until Friday night!"
"...."

Ah, merde. So, by some strange turn of events, we lost our contact for Geneva, and suddenly we had no where to stay for two nights. We were a little bit panicked.

But, to put it all into perspective, this is the first little complication we've really had, and it's not really that much of a complication. So we called Vincent and after a bunch of telephoning back and forth, and even an idea to join his dad and to go into Lyon right away to bide some time, we decided, at the INCREDIBLY generous offer of Vince's mom, to stay one more night in the hotel at Grenoble and leave tomorrow morning for Geneva, where we've found a nice little hotel to stay in. Then on Friday, we'll meet Sebastian in Aarau, and our plans resume normally.

Easy-peasy. And what a nice day we've had - we came for lunch, swam a bit, ate a bit, bronzed a bit, listened to music, watched the Alps, played some music, taught Vincent some brand "spanking" new card games. And the best part of it is -

I got to write this blog. Finally.

So thank you Vincent! And put Meylan on the map, folks. It's gorgeous. We'll upload the pictures as soon as we can and you'll be able to share some of the beauty.

Ciao dear friends, until next time -

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