The insane cyclists decided to ride up the mountain so a couple of us were left to our own devices waiting for them. We’d been pointed to La Cremaillere the day before so thought we’d give it a try.
La Cremaillere, L'Alpe-d'Huez, France
Tag: France
Caffe Leffe, Grenoble, France
About an hours drive from Villard Reculas is Grenoble at the base of the spectacular French Alps.
We arrived in Grenoble around 11am which gave us enough time to explore the historic centre of the city before finding somewhere for lunch to shelter us from the blistering midday sun.
Grenoble is compact and quite flat in the city centre so it was an easy walk. Great architecture and nice parks make it a pleasant walk – just watch out for the trams!
There’s a town square of sorts called Place Grenette close to the Jardin de Ville (Town Garden) which has dozens of restaurants around the square with several of the larger ones having tents in the square itself for you to sit under while you dine.
One of the larger establishments with a good menu that suited all 3 of us was Cafe Leffe so we decided to eat here under the tent. Some of the tents have water mist sprinklers to keep you cool, unfortunately not Cafe Leffe but we did get some relief from the adjacent cafe when the breeze was right.
Caffe Leffe, Grenoble, France
La Terrasse De Pomone, Paris, France
You can’t fault the location of this cafe under the trees, next to the lake complete with waddling ducks in the park in front of the Louvre in Paris.
La Terrasse De Pomone, Paris, France
Lavinia, La Defense, Paris, France
After spending the morning at The Eiffel Tower I’d headed back to my hotel, The Hilton Paris at La Defence, for a little bit of a siesta to get over the jet lag.
Hunger got the better of me so I searched TripAdvisor to see what decent restaurants were close to the hotel and I found one called Lavinia in the CNIT complex that the hotel is also part of.
Lavinia is a restaurant with a wine shop attached (or a wine shop with a restaurant depending on your point of view). There’s no printed menu but the menu of the day is written on the huge blackboard on the wall.
Lavinia, La Defense, Paris, France
Hilton Paris La Défense, Paris, France
Landing in Paris at around 7am I was heading to my hotel, the Hilton Paris La Défense, via the RER – 2 trains with a interchange at Châtelet – Les Halles for the onward train to La Défense – all up probably 75 minutes. I was hoping that I could check in early to get some shut eye after the flight from Hong Kong and I struck it lucky in that my room became available just as I was checking in around 10am.
Hilton Paris La Défense, Paris, France