Grenoble Day 5-8 - Grenoble Nightlife and the Bastille

Day 5 in Grenoble saw us celebrating Tommy's birthday and what better opportunity to explore what the Grenoble nightlife has to offer. The day kicked off with a trip to the local Monoprix (supermarket) to stock up on a few well earned brews for the weekend. We spent most of the day watching Le Tour on TV with the days stage being the first real mountain stage of the tour and was set to quickly show who was on form. Unsurprisingly, the Sky team dominated the race and Chris Froome obtained some significant time gaps over the rest of the GC contenders. As a result Sky once again have a stranglehold on the yellow jersey which looks like it could make for another boring tour in terms of the GC. None the less we enjoyed the race over a few Heinekens.  

After the race we took a stroll through the town to see what Grenoble has to offer. We came across this cool little bar called the London Pub, which much to our relief, had bar staff who actually spoke english. The staff were extremely friendly and I would recommend this place to any english speaking travellers venturing to Grenoble and looking for a good night. The picture below was take by one of the bar staff and was relatively early on in the night.

For the first few hours the pub was relatively dead however seemingly out of nowhere, and as the bar staff had suggested to us, the place erupted and was completely packed out. The night quickly got out of hand (as shown in the photo below) with a few free shots complimentary of the bar staff. A number of various local french drinks (including a drink called pasties, which was not much of a hit) combined with a few big days of cycling and we were well on our way.

After the London, we ventured to a place called Vertigo which was suggested to us by the bar staff at the London. Vertigo was more of a night club and was a bit of a change up from the London. Unfortunately the memory is a bit lacking at this point in the night but safe to say a good time was had by all. A big happy birthday to Tommy, hope you had a good night mate.

Needless to say Day 6 in Grenoble was a complete write off with a few sorry faces stumbling around the unit and most of the day was spent inside watching le tour on the tv. The day ended with our first experience of a Grenoble thunderstorm with some pretty crazy lightning. One of the boys even saw lighting strike a pole a few hundred metres from our unit. Unfortunately the weather forecast is for more of the same over the next few days and with the storm approaching very fast out of nowhere we are a little cautious with the riding as we do not want to be stuck up in the mountains when one of these storms  comes through.

Day 7 saw us feeling a little better then the day before however the forecast was again for storms from the early evening. As a result we decided to give riding a miss for the day and make the most of the sunny weather in the morning by taking a ride up the cable cars over the river and to the summit of the Fort de La Bastille. At the top there is a few restaurants, a museum and a whole range of high rope activities such as a flying fox, rock climbing and various acrobatic swings. However, the best attraction at the top is the views back down into Grenoble as shown in the photos below.

 

There is also a few little tunnels and caves along the way which make the walk to the top a little more interesting. Be sure to take a torch or iphone for lighting though as the lighting in the tunnel is not great.

All in all, it is well worth the 7 euro for the return trip to the top. Alternatively, you can climb up one of the steepest roads in Grenoble to get to the top (Something we are saving for another day).

Day 8 was unfortunately ruined by the weather and resulted in the day spent in doors watching the tour.