Hello and welcome back to the six of seven vacances de printemps recap posts! MTC and I went on a grand tour du sud – stops thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen on the journey were Cereste, Sisteron, and Grenoble! Without further ado, let’s get to it 🙂
Mercredi 18 avril 2018
Wednesday was our dedicated “car day”. We left Nice around 9h30 and arrived in destination #1, Cereste, just after 13h00.
Cereste is a tiny town located smack-dab in the middle of the Provence region, which also happens to be the located of an ice cream shop called Scaramouche. You may be thinking, “Why would you go to this random town in the middle of France just for ice cream?! That’s ridiculous.” Well, I’m glad you asked! A few years ago, I read the book Lunch in Paris (and the sequel Picnic in Provence), two memoirs that were written by Elizabeth Bard recounting her transition from life in the United States to life in France. In the second book, she tells the story of her and her husband as they seek to open a glacier in Provence – Scaramouche is their ice cream shop!
The interior was cozy and chic and the ice cream absolutely did not disappoint. I chose salted caramel and hazelnut; the flavors were spot on!
We enjoyed our ice cream, drove another hour through the countryside turned mountains, and ended up at destination #2: Sisteron.
I’ll be honest: the only reason we decided to stop in Sisteron is that there was a picture of the city on the lock screen of his PC a few months ago and it was just so beautiful we decided we had to visit it for ourselves!
We didn’t end up spending very long in Sisteron because I wasn’t feeling very good, but it was definitely beautiful! We jumped back in the car, made a quick stop at the supermarket to grab stuff for dinner, and continued on with our drive to Grenoble
After eight-ish hours in the car, we finally made it to Grenoble! Just like all of our other post-arrival evenings, we didn’t do too much. We checked-in, cooked dinner together, watched Netflix, and went to sleep
Mardi 19 avril 2018
MTC and I packed up the car on Thursday morning and headed downtown to explore Grenoble!
We grabbed a map from the tourism office and visited a few of the churches and monuments in the centre ville.
We finished our little walking tour and got in line to ride the télépherique up the mountain.
Normally, I’m not scared of heights, but for some reason, the cable car kind of freaked me out. Regardless, the short ride was worth the view from the top.
We stayed at the top of the mountain for a bit to enjoy the view.
We rode the télépherique back down the mountain and made our way back to the centre ville for lunch. MTC had found a Lebanese restaurant online the night before, so we decided to give it a try. Wow, wow, wow it was so good!
For the menu we ordered, we got two hot plates and six cold plates. It’s a unique restaurant because you choose the menu formula and the chef chooses which plates you receive – he stated that if he let the restaurant patrons chose their plates, they would order plates that don’t mesh or go together at all.
I didn’t take any pictures of the meal, but I couldn’t recommend this restaurant enough if you are ever in Grenoble! It’s authentic, fresh, delicious, and the chef was unbelievably friendly!
After lunch, we made our way back to the car and headed to our final vacation destination: MTC’s hometown, Thurins!
Thanks for reading to the end! Check back tomorrow for the final vacation recap post!
Until next time,
Michaela
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