Photo by Christina Rebuffet-Broadus

Around 40 cm of snow dumped on Grenoble this past week, giving two things to the city: one heck of a traffic jam and a very Christmas-y atmosphere. Seeing these two snow-flocked trees along the road made the hour-long creep to the office a little more bearable!

With so much snow and a sunny weekend announced, you can expect to see pretty much all of Grenoble at the ski resorts. Chamrousse and Autrans are around a half-hour’s drive away, and should be covered with a thick layer of fresh powder.

Photo courtesy of Didier Lafitte

With all the snow that’s been falling on Grenoble, it’s hard not to just desert the office for a day on the pistes. Since that may not be possible, here’s something to get you a little closer to the slopes while waiting for the weekend–an interview with Vittorio Mouret, President of the extreme-sports association Ride Spirit Attitude.

What is Ride Spirit Attitude ? It sounds like something that’s got kick!

It’s an association that wants to promote extreme sports. Our objective is to develop these sports because when we talk about extreme sports like freeride and freestyle, people get scared. They associate them with avalanches and accidents and think these types of activities are very dangerous. We want to prove they are really fab sports.

The name Ride Spirit Attitude showcases three essential words. Attitude is a state of mind–being responsible when you use the mountain and respecting other users. Spirit is wanting to be free. Ride, because we want to group together all the extreme sports like kitesurfing, snowboarding, skiing, and many more.

Why did you choose to set up your association in Grenoble?

First of all because I live in Grenoble! Plus I think Grenoble has a lot of potential to develop these sports. It’s at the center of the French Alps and is close to many great French resorts. In the summer, it’s a great destination for mountain-biking. The Lake Mont Eynard, which is just a short drive away, is great for kitesurfing and windsurfing. You can also go paragliding at St. Hilaire du Touvet, and I think that’s enough reasons to want to stay here in Grenoble.

What are you doing in Grenoble this Saturday?

This Saturday, another association, the Dahu, called us to do something for the launch of their winter guide, le Dahu des neiges. We suggested ARVA initiation, mountain bike demos, video projections, and presentations of our riders. Visitors can also test their balance to get a feeling for what it’s like to ride. It’s going to help us get the word out about our association in this part of France.

How can people find out more about the association?

You can go on our blog: http://ridespiritattitude.over-blog.com and friend us on our facebook page. If that’s not enough, you can send us an email at ridespiritattitude@live.Fr. And of course, come out and see us on Saturday.

Do any of your members speak English?

Me! Yes, we try to speak English in the office and our riders often travel to other countries so they speak English. Four out of five of them are in the French team. We even had one member go to the Olympic Games in Vancouver and another might make it to Sochi. We want to go beyond French borders. One member of our team, for example, has gone to spend the winter in Whistler, the lucky dog.

If you had to recommend one and only one ski resort, what would it be?

(without hesitating) Tignes. For me, it’s the biggest ski resort in France for extreme sports with a great champion, Guerlain Chicherit, who was world freeride champion a few times. There’s also Xavier Bertoni who came in first and third at the 2009 and 2010 US X-Games. Tignes is special for me because they were the first to host the X-Games in France, and even in Europe. And also, just because it’s a big place to go freeriding.

Merci beaucoup for speaking with us, Vittorio!

Ride Spirit Attitude will be at Place Saint André from 2 pm to 8 pm on Sat. Dec. 4, 2010.

Before actually getting to the reading room to spend my entire weekend perusing books about pretty much everything ever written about the Alps, I’ll go through this palace-like vestibule.

The entrance to the old library-museum

Then I’ll look up and notice that the artist wanted to give passers-by a quick history lesson:

Cularo, what they called in Grenoble in Gallic times

and

Gratianopolis, as they called Grenoble in Roman times

Plus, this year, the book fair’s theme is La Cuisine des Alpes. Still need a reason to go? I didn’t think so!

The official poster for this year's festival

The 12th Mountain Film Festival and Meeting is being held in Grenoble from November 15-19 at the Summum. This event always attracts mountain fanatics–this year, 3,000 spectators are expected to experience mountain magic every night for an entire week.

The event kicked off last night with the theme “All Around the World” and a showing of films set in, you guessed it, places all around the world. I personally got sucked into the adventures of the British film Lives of the Artists II: Follow Me Down, where two freeriders took on the mighty mountains of Antarctica.

This festival is the biggest of its kind in Europe–just goes to show how much Grenoble loves its mountains!

Here’s the full program. It’s in French, but you may be able to pick it apart and if not, at least you’ll know the titles of the films you’re watching, even if you don’t understand a word the actors are saying.

And if you’re feeling inspired to climb every mountain around this Alpine city, Autrans and Chamrousse are good places to start.

Zazie at the Musilac Festival in nearby Aix les Bains

When I was learning French, it was hard to enjoy the language outside the classroom (I know, I’m a total nerd).

You can’t really go around talking to yourself, but you can sing to yourself—in the car, in the shower, when it’s just you and the cat. That’s how I had fun with the language, with music. The internet has made is so easy to buy music from around the world, that it’s now easy to add a French touch to your CD collection.

Even if you’re not trying to learn a language, listening to another country’s pop music can be fun. It can up the cosmopolitan factor at a party or a quiet dinner with friends. It can take you back to your last vacation, strolling along the Seine and browsing those famous book stalls. It can also get you even more excited for that upcoming transatlantic trip (especially if you’re planning a trip to Grenoble).

To get you started, I’d like to offer a list of some of my favorite French musicians—it wasn’t easy just to choose a few!

Zazie: Between her first album Je Tu Ils (1992), her most recent 7 (2010), and the eight albums in between, Zazie’s sound evolves but the result is always something uniquely Zazie. Sometimes she uses the classic French accordion, sometimes the latest electronic sound maker. In my opinion the 2006 Rodeo is one of her best. The songs “Zen” and “Rue de la Paix” are some of her biggest hits from earlier albums.

Listen to extracts from her 2008 album Zest of.

Carla Bruni: Also known as Mme Sarkozy, this model turned singer/songwriter is also France’s first lady. Her whispery voice can be rather entrancing, and her hit” Quelqu’un m’a dit” has been included on just about every French compilation CD to come out stateside. Her lyrics can be quite saucy, but sang in that whispy, femme fatale voice, they melt into something truly sensual. And have no shame–just because you like her music doesn’t mean you support his politics.

Listen to extracts from her album Quelqu’un m’a dit.

Indochine: Like me, this group was created in 1981 and is still going strong. They have gone from a 1980s new wave sound to more lyrical rock, with each album being its own little world. The most recent, La République des Météors, is one of the group’s most audacious works, and one of its best. I also listen to their previous album, Alice et June, for days on end at some times.

Listen to extracts from their album La République des Météors.

Olivia Ruiz: This young singer hails from the southwest of France and you can sometimes hear touches of Spanish flair in her songs. Her 2007 album La Femme Chocolat sold over 1.1 million copies thanks to the whimsical world that she concocts—singing “knead my hips with kisses. Let my Nutella hips melt. I’ve got hot chocolate running through my veins.” Who could want to go on a diet with words like that?

Listen to extracts from her album La Femme Chocolat.

Paris Combo : This quintet gets its name from the city that inspires them and the jazz groups—combos—of the 1930s jazz world. Skillfully mixing jazz, chanson, latin, and gypsy influences, Paris Combo’s sound harks back to the Paris jazz clubs of the time between the wars, but with resolutely modern lyrics. I still listen to my copy of their 1999 album Living Room—the first French CD I bought, and on my first trip to France during my freshman year of college.

Listen to extracts from their album Living Room.

This short list hardly covers all of the French music worth listening to. If you know of other noteworthy French groups or singers, please share!

Diots and crozets

As the temperatures start dropping here in Grenoble, the food starts getting heartier and heartier. That’s why this hefty serving of diots and crozets looks like it’ll stick to your ribs, kind of like a first layer of natural insulation to get ready for winter.

In case diots and crozets mean about as much to you as kjpodijdk (no, that’s not a real word, at least that I know of), diots are sausages from the neighboring Savoie area. Since they’re sausage, they’re made of pork and maybe with a little cabbage mixed in to let your conscience convince you that yes, you are eating vegetables too. Oh, and they’re usually boiled in white wine with chopped onion. Just keep saying to yourself, “I’m getting my veggies too.”

That pile of alien mash in the back is zucchini purée (eat your greens, eat your greens…) on top of a bowl of piping crozets. Think thick lasagna sheets cut into confetti. You can mix in melted cheese for ooey gooey goodness, or like here, toss in a few mushrooms. Like the diots, the crozets are native to Savoie, but here in Grenoble, we eat a lot of both too when it gets a bit nippy out. Try to eat either in the summer and you’ll probably just suffocate.

And if you’re curious how the French handle all that, brush up on eating habits à la française.

The daily specials

Authors, bloggers (yours truly included), and journalists have spilled a lot of ink over the ordeal of eating in France. Some can’t fill their stories with enough gushy superlatives while others lament that eating in France just ain’t what it used to be. Gastronomic  awakening or just another pit stop, eating in France is admittedly a little different from eating in the U.S. Set times more or less govern a the Gallic eating schedule and visitors shouldn’t be caught off guard.

Le petit déjeuner

A Frenchman often drinks his petit déjeuner in the form of black coffee, café au lait, or tea. Like in the U.S., cereal has become a breakfast table staple, but the traditional breakfast includes tartines—bakery bread spread with butter and jam. This may be a baguette or any assortment of breads that make French bakeries such heavenly places. Croissants and pains au chocolat often show up on breakfast tables, though not on a daily basis unless you are in a hotel.

Many people drink their coffee or tea from a bowl, although hotels and cafés tend to serve the beverages in mugs or cups. Also, breakfast coffee is served as a long drink, not as the espresso sipped throughout the rest of the day.

If your hotel is charging you upward of 10€ for some bread and coffee, head out to a café and watch Grenoble come to life. Le Coq Hardi and Pain & Cie do good, typical breakfasts for around 5€.

Le déjeuner

First of all, forget the idea that all of France shuts down for two hours while its workers laze over five course meals. McDonald’s is France’s most popular restaurant and the French are only second to Americans when it comes to wolfing down pizza. That being said, a lot of restaurants offer a plat du jour or two for 7€-10€. Since they’ve prepared ahead, the daily special usually arrives at the table fairly quickly so that employees can have a decent meal and get back to work in around an hour’s time. Lunch time in France roughly corresponds to lunch time in the U.S., starting around noon or 1:00 p.m.

In addition to the plats du jour, diners can order à la carte from a menu similar to those in American restaurants. Many restaurants also propose formules, fixed price menus, with a choice of entrée + plat, plat + dessert, or entrée + plat + dessert. Be careful—l’entrée is the appetizer and le plat is the main course.

While the French drink less wine than a generation ago, Bordeaux and Burgundy still find a place at the lunch table. The house wine (une carafe de rouge, rosé, or blanc) is often available in 25 cl (about two glasses), 50 cl, and 75 cl pitchers. Split bottles are sometimes available, as are single glasses. The selection may, however, be limited to just a few vintages. A little wine is better than none!

Many lunches in France end with an espresso. Also, look for the café gourmand on menus. This is a good choice if a full portion of dessert feels like too much. Two or three mini-desserts like crème brulée, brownie, macaron, mousse au chocolat, or apple crumble accompany an espresso, and a café gourmand usually runs around €5. More and more restaurants have begun offering this sweet sampler.

Head to La Table Ronde, Le Mix, or Le Tonneau de Diogène for fairly priced midday deals.

Le dîner

Dinner may or may not be the main meal of the day. It depends on the individual, the family, or simply whatever is most convenient that day. Dinner starts later than in the U.S., usually around 8 p.m.-ish. French prime time programs even start at 8:45 so that families can digest in front of their favorite TV show.

A simple family dinner usually consists of soup or salad and perhaps a little meat. If the evening meal is more substantial, expect a main dish with a few sides.

Most restaurants do not serve dinner before 8 p.m. When eating out, most guests go for the fixed price menu which includes an appetizer, a dish, and a dessert. Plats du jour aren’t served for dinner, only lunch. When the French eat out at night, they tend to take their time to savor each course, as well as the conversation with friends. Such meals easily stretch over two hours. If the waiter carefully paces the service, you won’t even notice until you look at your watch and realize you ordered an espresso…at 10:30 p.m.

Try Le Saint Christophe or La Ferme à Dédé for hearty cooking that will send you off to dreamland.

Now, all you have to do is decide which table to pull yourself up to. Bon appetit!

]]> http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/grenoble-france/2010/10/05/surviving-le-dejeuner-how-to-eat-like-a-local/feed/ 4 1 http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/grenoble-france/2010/10/01/photo-friday-autumn-falls-on-grenoble/ http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/grenoble-france/2010/10/01/photo-friday-autumn-falls-on-grenoble/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:04:41 +0000 crebuffet http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/grenoble-france/?p=129

Photo by Christina Rebuffet-Broadus

Although I duly celebrated the first day of fall more than a week ago with a steamy bowl of soupe à la courge (a sort of pumpkin-squash soup), this park full of crisp leaves made this week feel extra autumn-y. It’s kind of hidden away, in the park of Grenoble’s three towers, near the sprawling St. Roch cemetery (behind the wall there). Although the towers were Europe’s tallest apartment buildings when they went up for the 1968 winter Olympics, I got all giddy kicking up a few leaves on the ground below.

Get ready to see this all over France on Sept. 23

Here we go again! After the Sept. 7  and 15 strikes earlier this month, France’s biggest unions are calling for a second “day of mobilization” this Thursday. Call it the only way for the people to defend their rights or a big pain in the fesses for the rest of us who still have to work, strikes punctuate French life, especially at back-to-school times and when the spring weather brightens the skies.

In Grenoble, this means that instead of trams every couple of minutes, you’ll be waiting at the stops for up to 10 minutes. You may have to get a running start to cram into the trams that do actually pull through. Same goes for buses, where some lines (like the 9, 21, 30, 31, and 41) will come around every 20 minutes or so. Oh, and most stop running at 7 p.m. so if you need to get back to somewhere, do it early. Get all the dirty details of which buses are running when on the Semitag Web site.

So, what’s all the fuss about this time? Same as on Sept. 7 and 15. Because the guys in power are hardline determined to push retirement age to…you ready? 62 years of age. Currently, French workers can trade their suits for bermudas and moomoos (not that French women wear moomoos) at the age of 60. A retirement age two years later just doesn’t sit well, and then again, why would you want to do the 9-to-5 thing longer than you have to?

My advice–rent a bike if you need to go anywhere on Thursday. Do a little good for your health so you can enjoy your retirement, whenever it will be.

The outside gallery of La Caserne de Bonne

Last Wednesday, La Caserne de Bonne shopping center opened its doors (step back in time and preview the opening if you want to build a little bone-tingling suspense…)

While I like excitement, I wanted to steer clear of opening-day mobs but get there before Saturday when probably half of Grenoble will flock to the new stores to either A) shop or B) just walk around and look.

Just as planned, not too many people were pushing around the place, just enough to give La Caserne a little energy. So what was it like? Pretty cool, actually. The open-air galleries are pleasantly airy although if it had rained, I might have had another impression. It was kind of weird to see someone ride their bike through, but then I remembered, yes, it is a mall, but no, it isn’t closed off. There is an indoor gallery too, maybe so people will still come if weather is bad.

La Caserne’s ecological side shows up in the choice of stores too–Nature et Découvertes, Terre Avenir organic food store, Resonances bath and body shop, and Le Vieux Camper outdoor gear shop. Makes sense.

Although it was a bit surprising that Le Vieux Camper wasn’t actually selling anything yet. Their official opening date is Oct. 15. In the meantime, though, they’ve filled the store with winter sports memorabilia, especially from 1968 when Grenoble hosted the winter Olympics.  Although I went in a little disappointed at not being able to come away with some nifty hiking equipment, I left hoping they’ll keep the makeshift museum once the shelves are stocked.