Grenoble

The Bastille, Saint-Laurent and the Musée de Grenoble

Central Grenoble can be done in a day if you start with the first cable car. Ride the cable car to the Bastille early for views to Mont Blanc, walk down through the fortifications to the Saint-Laurent quarter and the Musée Dauphinois, then spend the afternoon at the Musée de Grenoble. Use a second day for Chamrousse, the Vercors or the Chartreuse, each under an hour away.

Grenoble stands where the Drac flows into the Isère, and its metropolitan area of about 727,000 people is the largest in the Alps. The Bastille cable car has run since 1934; its egg-shaped, mostly glass cabins are known locally as les bulles. The 1968 Winter Olympics left the city a new town hall, station and airport, and helped build up Chamrousse, Les Deux Alpes and Villard-de-Lans. The Musée de Grenoble, with about 200,000 visitors a year, hangs Veronese, Rubens, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky, with sculpture by Rodin, Giacometti and Calder. Science shapes the city too: the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the CEA sit on the Polygone Scientifique.

Morning. Take the bubbles up from Quai Stéphane Jay early, while the air is clear and you can pick out Mont Blanc on a good day to the northeast, with the Vercors cliffs to the west and Belledonne across the valley. Walk the fort's ramparts and the small museum of the mountain troops.

Late morning. Walk down. The paths and long stairways drop through the fortifications to the Saint-Laurent quarter. Stop at the Musée Dauphinois, in a former convent on the slope, for the region's mountain life, then at the Musée Archéologique in the church of Saint-Laurent with its crypt.

Afternoon. Cross the Isère on the footbridge and give two hours to the Musée de Grenoble, strong on everything from Zurbarán to Matisse and Picasso. Walk back through Place Saint-André, with the old Parliament of the Dauphiné, and Place aux Herbes.

Evening. Drinks between Place Grenette and Place Notre-Dame, then dinner back in Saint-Laurent for pizza below the fort walls.

Next day. Head into the mountains: a regional coach to Chamrousse for skiing or summer walks, or drive up into the Vercors or the Chartreuse massif, each under an hour away.

Gratin dauphinois, ravioles and Grenoble walnuts

Grenoble cooks from the Dauphiné repertoire. Order gratin dauphinois, made locally without cheese, and ravioles du Dauphiné, tiny cheese-and-herb pasta squares. Saint-Marcellin and Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage are the local cheeses, walnuts carry their own appellation, and Chartreuse ends the meal. Shop at the Halles Sainte-Claire or the Marché de l'Estacade.

The Dauphiné eats for mountain weather. The dish everyone knows is gratin dauphinois, thin potatoes baked slowly in milk and cream, with no cheese if it is done the local way. Order it as a side to almost anything. Ravioles du Dauphiné, tiny squares of pasta filled with cheese and herbs from the Royans to the west, come poached in broth or baked in cream.

Cheese comes down from the massifs: Saint-Marcellin, small and runny, and Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage, a mild blue. Walnuts are the local crop, with their own appellation, and appear in salads, bread and gâteau aux noix, a dense walnut cake. Finish with a glass of green or yellow Chartreuse, the herbal liqueur made by monks from the massif north of town.

For shopping, the covered Halles Sainte-Claire in the centre have cheesemongers and butchers under one roof, and Place aux Herbes holds a small market most mornings in the old town. The big, cheap Marché de l'Estacade spreads under a railway viaduct south of the centre and is where locals buy their vegetables. For restaurants, the old streets around Rue Brocherie and Place Saint-André have the traditional tables, Saint-Laurent the Italian ones.