Something my friends may not know is that now that we live in the Gresivaudan valley we are quite near to the well known wine growing region of Savoie. Their wines may be a bit more expensive  than the average Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhône wines (for instance), but they are certainly my favorites  after Loire valley wines, which I learned to love during the last Summer’s bicycle tour. The grape varieties grown in Savoie are also very rare elsewhere.

Our today’s hike took us to the vineyards of Savoie in the shadow of the grandiose Mont Granier (1933m), which we have not climbed yet, and don’t know if we ever will. In November 1284 a  piece of limestone fell down causing a massive landslide that destroyed several villages and  caused more than  1000 casualties (this is debatable, though, since the mountain lies over a rural area with very low population density that must have been much lower in the late 1200’s). Another rockslide in 2016 was stopped by trees within 300 meters of the nearest houses. Access to that area is still forbidden due to the risk of new slides.

Here are a few photos from and of our lunch spot. This is apparently a popular place for hikers to rest, since the owner of the cabin had posted a note (with a picture of himself) asking people not to litter, and had even put up a trash bin.

This was a very comfortable hike (10.85K in 3 hours, with D+/D- 220m) on this warm and sunny Sunday. We’ll certainly be back in this area since it is just a few minutes’ drive from home.

Where ever there were vines, underneath them there were small yellow flowers that resembled coltsfoot, and also some blue and purple ones.