Grenoble: the bubble cable car to the Alps

Surrounded by three alpine ranges visible in one glance, Grenoble hosted the 1968 Winter Olympics and remains one of the most accessible gateways to the French Alps.

The center is explored on foot; there's a cable car to the Bastille.

Walking in the historic centre, one encounters the Museum of Grenoble, among France's most important art museums outside Paris, with works ranging from the Middle Ages to contemporary art.

Ascending in the characteristic spherical cable car cabins, known as 'les bulles', one reaches the Bastille, a 19th-century fortress overlooking the entire city.

From the terrace of the fortress, one can distinguish in a single glance three different Alpine chains: the Chartreuse, the Vercors, and the Belledonne massif.

Towards evening, returning to the centre among the streets of the old quarter, outdoor cafés offer a pause after the ascent, with the mountains still visible in the background of the streets.

The Bastille cable car, opened in the nineteen thirties and renovated multiple times, was among the first urban cable cars built in Europe precisely to connect a city center to an overlooking fortress.

Few other cities in the world allow you to see three distinct mountain ranges from a single viewpoint reachable in minutes from downtown.