Visit to Meylan
22-25 September, 2005.
Les caves de Chartreuse, Voiron.
Our flight from Luton arrived
at Grenoble St Geoirs early Thursday afternoon and our hosts had thoughtfully
organised a visit to the Chartreuse distillery at Voiron en route to our
official welcome in Meylan.
I knew that the famous
Chartreuse liqueur was created by Carthusian monks but I had never realised
how great was the secrecy surrounding the precise combination of ingredients
that gives the liqueur its distinctive flavour, nor the lengths to which the
makers have gone over the centuries in order to preserve that secret. From
small beginnings in the early 17th century, when the monks were
known for their herbal remedies, the recipe was refined over the next century
and it has remained the same since 1737. However, its history has been
intertwined with major religious, political and social events in France. For
a short time in the 20th century, the community of monks was even
expelled from France and relocated at Tarragona in Spain. However, today
Chartreuse liqueur is known and enjoyed world-wide.
Our tour of the distillery took
us through the various stages of processing and refinement and was
interspersed with short films describing the sometimes turbulent history of
the monastery. Finally, we were invited to partake of a dégustation, from a
selection of green or yellow Chartreuse or one of the other fruit liqueurs
made on the premises and everyone appeared to enjoy their choice. Most of us
were then tempted to buy a souvenir of our visit from the adjoining shop
before returning to the coach and continuing our journey to Meylan.
Tour of Old Grenoble, Friday 23 September.
How old is Grenoble? It is
reported to have been founded approximately 3 centuries BC and named Cularo
by the Romans, who decided the site by the river Isère was ideally placed
between Rome and Vienne, then the capital city of the Allobroges tribe. Parts
of the elliptical Roman wall round the city can still be seen and the outline
of the rest is marked by metal studs in the ground. Over the centuries the
city has grown enormously but evidence of its long history has been preserved
and, despite the modern developments all around, much of its character is
retained in its squares, churches and houses, several of which we were able
to see in our morning tour. We were also privileged to see behind the facades
of a few buildings and to glimpse courtyards and ornate staircases that
hinted at an opulent past.
Grenoble appears to have had a
love-hate relationship with the author Stendhal, one of its more famous sons,
who was born in the city but turned his back on it in his late teens,
preferring the heady delights of Paris. Nevertheless, both his birthplace and
his grandfather’s home, where he spent much of his youth, are acknowledged
and preserved. There is also a Musée Stendhal. The philosopher, Jean Jaques
Rousseau, only visited Grenoble for a month in 1768 but his house is also
identified.
More prosaically, Grenoble is
home to the second oldest cement factory in France (since 1842) and there is
ample evidence in the city of its use for both functional and decorative
purposes. Thus, from Roman beginnings to the present day, Grenoble has made
good use of its ambient resources and is proud to show them to visitors.
Grenoble is in the province of
Dauphinée and the symbol of the city is a dolphin – a simple connection, one
would expect. However, the real story is much more complicated. Dauphinée is
derived from the Allobroges word for the flower delphinium and the region was
independent of France until 1349. In the Middle Ages, Grenoble was home to
the counts of Albon, who founded the dynasty of Princes Dauphin. In the 15th
century Dauphinée was governed by the future King Louis XII and the tradition
developed of naming the heir to the French throne, the Dauphin. Almost
incidentally, it appears, one Countess of Albon nicknamed her son ‘dolphin’
and the similarity of the name to Dauphin has resulted in the subsequent
adoption of the dolphin as the symbol of the city, to the undoubted confusion
of many visitors.
Le Musée des Automates, Friday, 23 September.
Having visited an exhibition of
automates in Lille a few years ago, which was informative but unexciting, I
was totally unprepared for the stunning array, lovingly and theatrically
displayed by the museum owner. The entrance to the small museum could easily be missed in a crowded
street, but the interior is crammed with automata representing over two
hundred years of invention, and presented as a memory to a former Grenoblois,
Jaques de Vaucanson, who was one of the early inventors of animated objects.
We were treated to carousels, fairground organs, whistling birds, musical
boxes, pianolas and an amazing variety of mechanical figures, and were
encouraged to press buttons and turn handles ourselves, thus reawakening
childhood delights. Several of the figures were unobtrusively linked so that
when one was activated, others would start to move and it was hard to know
where to look. Although the objects themselves were fascinating, much of our
enjoyment of the visit stemmed from the enthusiasm and showmanship of the
owner who clearly took delight
in challenging our eyes and imaginations with one surprise after another.
(Janet Cockburn, October 05)