Grenoble Off The Beaten Path

The campus of Grenoble is built mostly in the city of Saint Martin d'Hères and for a small part on the neighboring city of Gières.
Saint Martin d'Hères (SMH) is not only a campus but on my page I will present only that part of the city. Moreover, I will present here all what is connected with the University, let it be in SMH or elsewhere in the Grenoble area.

A CENTRE OPEN TO THE WORLD
6,000 foreign students
3,200 students registered for French as a foreign language courses
Thousands of foreign executives
2 international secondary schools
40 foreign communities
150 cultural and international associations
more than 80 countries in contact with Grenoble research teams (of which 80% in EU countries and North America).

B Grenoble, an international research venueThese international networks ? the fruit of each establishment's past and their bonds with other academic bodies ? are organized through European student mobility programmes and bilateral and multilateral agreements.
The agreements cover the exchange of students, researchers and teachers, and joint teaching programmes such as dual degrees and co-tutored theses. They cover every area of science. The diversity of the student population attending Grenoble universities reflects their international dimension, hosting more than 6,000 foreign students, who account for 10% of the total student body.

C A favourable context for learning languagesEighteen languages are taught in Grenoble universities (German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, English, Spanish, Dutch, Rumanian, Arab, Modern Greek, Portughese, Serbo-Croate, Catalan, Italian, Polish, Czech.
In the middle of the campus Maison des Langues et des Cultures offers all students complete courses and separate modules, in classes or for self-learning.

Meylan, La Tronche, Corenc and Montbonnot-Saint-Martin
In my Meylan page, I will present mostly Meylan but also neighboring cities of La Tronche, Corenc and Montbonnot-Saint-Martin.

Meylan and Montbonnot-Saint-Martin are now developped at the bottom of the valley though the ancient villages were on the slopes, out of reach of the Isère floods. La Tronche and Corenc have both remained entirely on the slopes of the Chartreuse massif. The Mont Saint Eynard with its fort is on the limit of these communities.
These cities in the close neighbourhood of Grenoble have always been residential locations. When a one hour horse or carriage ride was necessary to reach Meylan or La Tronche, wealthy citizens had for summer a country mansion in these remote places. Now that they are reached by bus or car in a dozen of minutes, everybody wants to live there as it is the less polluted part of the valley and has more green spaces. Meylan had 1074 inhabitants in 1946, 19,000 now.
Meylan is twinned since 1986 with Gonzales (Louisiana) in the USA, 1988 with Planegg (Bavaria) in Germany and since 1999 with Didcot in England.

During the past thirty years, Meylan, the first and more recently Montbonnot-Saint-Martin have developed a district called ZIRST (for Zone industrielle de Recherche Scientifique et Technique = Industrial zone for scientific and technical research). That means that the ZIRST has built 2/3 levels buildings ready for rent to small, new companies in electronics, informatics, metrology and other high technology fields. Larger companies have bought land and have now buildings of their own, often developing an interesting architecture. They are the one I will show here.
This ZIRST has often been called the French Silicon Valley. On the 15th of April 2005, the unpronounceable ZIRST has become Inovallée, for Innovation Valley and with an evident wink to Silicon Valley.

Saint Martin le Vinoux is the western entrance into Grenoble. Where the autoroute from Lyon arrives, stands a huge monument that was build in 1967 for the Winter Olympics, during a sculpture symposium by Morice Lipsi, called "Ouverture dans l'Espace" (space opening) but more often called Olympic column. A little further upstream along the Isère river, the entrance in Grenoble has long been the Porte de France. On the limit between Grenoble and Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux, it is one of the few remains of the city walls built by Lesdiguières. A 1620 carving in Latin reminds that this entrance was first called Porte Royale, dedicated to Louis XIII and François de Bonne, duke of Lesdiguières, peer and marschal of France. It was restaured in 1847-48. In 1932, it was turned into a "Monument aux Morts" to honor the dead of 1914-1918 World War.

In my Saint Martin le Vinoux page, I will explain under "things to do" why and how Saint Martin le Vinoux and the whole Grenoble area are strongly linked to the history of concrete. The Casamaures is the master piece of that industry and in this case, it is worth the name of art and is a must visit for those who are interested in architecture. I will present in this page concrete achievements not only in St Martin but also in Grenoble.

Underwater diggings on the shores of the Paladru lake have revealed two engulfed villages. The "village des Baigneurs" (`Bathers village) dates back from the end of the Neolithic, 2700 BC while Colletière dates from 1000 AD.
The best artifacts are on show in a museum together with maquettes that allow to understand easily how the villages looked like.
For more on the Lac de Paladru, visit theit web site.

Address : Musée du lac de Paladru, 38850 Charavines
tel : 04 76 55 77 47 info@museelacdepladru.com
May, October and November : open Sturdays and Sundays 14h-18h
June and September : open daily 10h-12h and 14h-18h
July and August : open daily 10h-12h and 15h-19h
Fee : 3 euros

Antésite is a perfect drink for weight watchers and for those who do not drink any alcohol. It is sugar free and alcohol free. It was invented in Voiron by Noël Perrot Berton, a pharmacist in 1898. It is a concentrate of liquorice with other plant extracts. With a few drops in a glass, you get a pleasant drink. Moreover, you can use it when you can only get water with a bad taste (highly chlorinated water for example) as the liquorice hides any bad taste. With one small bottle, you can make up to 80 liters of drink !
For more on the Antésite, visit their web site.

The monastery of the Grande Chartreuse cannot be visited but you can visit the "Correrie" and the museum, 25 km from Voiron. For more on the Correrie, visit their web site.

You can also visit in Voiron the Distillerie de la Grande Chartreuse. Monks a re brewing the famous green (stronger) or yellow (sweeter) "Chartreuse" liquor, made with 130 different mountain plants following a secret formula.
For more on the Chartreuse Liquors and its visit, visit their web site

Close to Grenoble and the Massif de l'Oisans, on the famous "Route Napoléon", the "Domaine départemental de Vizille" gathers on the same location a prestigious natural and cultural patrimony : the castle, its gardens, the French Revolution museum and the animals park.

In 1984, the French Revolution museum opened. It reminds not only how the French Revolution began here in 1788 and spread in 1789 to Paris and the whole country but also it shows all the cultural, social and political changes that occurred at the end of the XVIIIth century all over Europe. The library owns more than 20,000 books than can be used by researchers, students and anybody interested in the history of that dramatic and exciting period.

B.P. 1753 - 38220 Vizille
Tél : 04.76.68.07.35. - Fax : 04.76.68.08.53.

Opening of the park (free) :
Every day except Tuesdays and the 1st of May.
March through May and September through October : 9h-19h
June through August : 9h-20h.
November through February : 10h-17h.
Museum and castle :
Every day except Tuesdays, the 1st of May Christmas and New Year's day..
April through October : 10h-17h
November through March : 10h-17h

Outside Grenoble, one easy place to visit is ''le chemin de fer de La Mure''. In the train station, you take a ticket to Saint-Georges-de-Commiers (about 15 km). There, you can take the privately run old train that runs on the railway that was used to transport coal from La Mure to Grenoble. It is very impressive.
Thirty km of railroad gripped to a steep mountain slope, 142 bridges, 18 tunnels, 122 bends reveal a breathtaking landscape for 100 minutes. This metric width railway began to run in 1889 after four years of titanic work.
to transport coal from La Mure to Saint-Georges-de-Commiers where it was loaded on full size wagons to reach Grenoble and further. The mines are now closed and the train runs only for tourists. In La Mure a photographic shows present 100 years of the mine train. In Saint-Georges-de-Commiers, a museum reminds how the miners had a hard work.
Tél : 0.892.391.426. - Fax : 04.76.735.736. e-mail : trainmure@aol.com
For more, look at the web site Chemin de fer de La Mure