Last Day In Grenoble: Another travel adventure

As noted previously, 4 days in Grenoble is not enough. The town is rich in history, architecture and activity. For our last day we decided to explore several things that had caught our attention, but we had failed to pursue.

As usual that meant walking, quite a bit of it. There are a couple of “famous” murals in town and those were first on our viewing list. Snek is an icon in the field of street art murals and about a decade ago he created the following antiwar message for the Grenoble street art festival.

The coloration on her face is not graffiti but represents tears flowing down her face. The next mural is by Shepard Fairey aka “Obey Giant” and is his first piece of artwork in France outside of Paris. “The Rose Girl” is said to be an effort to encourage all of us to live together in harmony.

As noted in an earlier post, you are not seeing many murals, although Grenoble is a hot spot for street art. I am boycotting legitimate street art that has been defaced by graffiti artists. Grenoble has as much graffiti as any city I can remember. It is a curious endeavor to wonder what has protected these two murals from the vandals.

On our way to one of the above we stumbled upon Grenoble’s Old Bonne Garrison. It was constructed in 1883 and is comprised of three main building arranged around a square courtyard. Its original purpose was to house artillery for the city’s defense. Today it is site of France’s first certified eco district. It is a beautiful park and plaza with combined residential and commercial inhabitants. The picture below is taken from the area to attempt to show the layered effect with the Alps in the background. It looks better in person.

We were constantly amazed at how many greenspaces we encountered on our cross-town trek. The 1968 Winter Olympics site is another nearby expanse of green space. It also is the site of three sports complexes, kid’s play areas, sculpture and City Hall. Right across the street from the City Hall is another tremendous park named after Josephine Baker, a prominent American chanteuse who famously left the U.S. shortly after her 21st birthday. She left declaring she was unwilling to live a country where she was afraid of being black. She is an iconic figure in France not only for her stage presence, but also for her efforts in the resistance movement in WWII. She later returned to the U.S. to support Martin Luther King’s civil rights campaign.

Heading out of the park north toward downtown we encountered a couple more smaller greenspace courtyards/plazas. We wandered through the maze of streets that is Grenoble’s old town, seeing things we had missed during our first few days in town. Eventually we crossed the river to Grenoble’s “Right Bank”. Because it abuts the hillside climbing to The Bastille there is not a lot there. But the street that runs along the river is what was called Little Italy because it is where the Italian population predominantly settled. No longer is the area predominantly Italian, but as we traversed the street from west to east, I counted 13 pizzerias. We had crossed on a trafficked bridge and were going to cross back on a heavily human trafficked bridge. At the bridge there was a bar with a patio on a sunny day that induced us to sit down, but not until we checked what kind of beers were on tap. Much to my delight there was a rich creamy stout with notes of cocoa and roasted grains. Fantastic, as I rarely try a beer, it is always a thrill to find one that tickles my palate.

One of the things that has struck me in the parts of France we have visited is the detail in so many structures. Here are two examples.

This morning we got up and headed to the train station, on our way to Beaune. As per my usual, I had to turn travel day into an adventure. We were at the train station before I realized I had forgotten to put the key for our apartment back into the lock box where it came from. That mistake cost me two extra Uber rides but I managed to return to the station ten minutes before the train departed. It sure beats sitting around idly waiting for the train!