Spontaneity

One of the best things about living in France is the opportunity to travel to all these amazing places because everything is so close. It allows us to dive into things without having to think sooo much about them beforehand, or spend a fortune.

Last Saturday Elisa and I decided to be a little spontaneous and on Friday night we decided that we were going to Grenoble the next morning. Grenoble is a town about an hour and a half southeast of Lyon, is situated right in the French Alps and is of course breathtaking. ...so on Saturday morning without tickets or timetables we left our residence, set off for Part- Dieu Gare SNCF (our local train station) and bought the next train out of Lyon to Grenoble. ...Sometimes spontaneity pays off, as we only had to wait about a half hour for our train. Perfect.

So we were on our way. The beauty about European transportation is that everyone takes trains. The trains are fast, direct, and the best part...the "windows" are really just walls of glass so you don't miss a thing in the amazing countryside. There were amazing views, and the closer to the Alps we got, the more snow that appeared. It was fantastic.

So after our train ride, we arrived in Grenoble- home of the skiers (or so it appeared- by the end of the day we were DYING to go skiing). Anyway, we wandered the town on a mission to get as close as possible to the snow capped mountains. ...it was kind of like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow hahaha...in the end though, we managed to walk far enough out of town that no buildings blocked our view and the scene was well worth it. Words cannot describe what real mountains look like. absolutely amazing :) ...

So after more hiking, shopping and sightseeing, we were able to meet up with some friends from back home who live in Grenoble, and they showed us around their favourite spots. ...a few hours later, we had a warm up in a bar, and before we knew it we were back on the "harry potter classic compartment style" train for Lyon.

Great day! :)