We spent the extended weekend in Entre-deux-Guiers (Le Guiers Vif and Le Guiers Mort) in the Guiers river valley on the Chartreuse mountains. The main reason for the trip was our dentist appointments in the neighboring village of Les-Échelles on Monday, so we thought why not spend the whole weekend hiking in that beautiful valley. The curious feature of this valley is that it is completely flat; it is probably impossible to find an equally large, flat area in the French Alps. Of course, the Isère river valley Grésivaudan is very flat, but it is situated between two mountain chains not inside one.
We did three very easy and scenic hikes during the weekend and also on Monday before our appointments.
Pas de Béatrice de Savoie and Chapelle de la Madeleine
We did the first hike just after arriving in Les-Échelles and before checking in to our Airbnb apartment in Entre-deux-Guiers. It took us north from the Tourism office in Les-Échelles (390m) to the little Chapelle de la Madeleine at 530 meters. This hike was marked as very easy, but it had some steep and tricky sections.
The Gorge of Échaillon and Roman Bridge of Saint-Martin
The second hike took us to two small villages Saint-Christophe-sur-Guiers and Saint-Christophe La Grotte. On our way we visited the old roman bridge of Saint-Martin and the Gorge of Échaillon through which the river Guiers (Vif) enters the valley. At this point it is worth mentioning that we were really lucky with the weather. The original forecast promised rain for the whole weekend, but we had three sunny days to enjoy, rain falling only on Sunday night.
In the pictures above you see the old bridge of Saint-Martin, dating back to the 15th century, that served as a border post between the state of Savoie and the kingdom of France until 1860, when the former was joined to the latter. The new bridge was built just little after, I think we saw the year 1861 carved on it.
Canal de l’Herretang, Villette and Le Guiers Mort
Our third and the last hike followed the canal of Herretang south to the village of Villette and back north along the branch Mort of the river Guiers. It had rained at night so the spiderwebs by the canal were sparkling in the early morning sunlight. However, my cellphone camera did not quite catch them, but you may get the idea from the pictures above how pretty they were. This turned out to be another t-shirt hike: in sunny spots with no breeze it got quite hot.
This was a marvelous short getaway in the fresher mountain air from our polluted valley. We could not help thinking that the valley, being so flat, would be a great place for Nordic skiing. But then again they don’t get much or any snow at that altitude.
