Two strolls in Saint-Martin-d'Hères

My birthday gift to me

I live near the border between Grenoble proper and one of its adjoining communes, Saint-Martin-d’Hères. The relatively sprawling municipality, named for a 4th century patron saint plus an old word for swamp, includes the university campus (domaine universitaire), residential neighborhoods of various eras (few particularly recent), and a swath of foothills.

Last Friday evening, the perfect blue-sky weather and the fact that it was my birthday weekend enticed me on a leisurely stroll deeper into the calm streets of Saint-Martin-d’Hères to revisit a discovery I had made a year before.¹

Then, on my birthday proper, I had a picnic with some friends on top of one of Saint-Martin-d’Hères’ hills, the Colline du Murier. We hiked up in half an hour from a bus stop in another commune, Gières, and descended into Saint-Martin-d’Hères.

I didn’t do any writing over the weekend, so voici your own leisurely ballade through some photos of houses, flowers, and hills without any clamor, for once.

Stroll #1: to Couvent des Minimes

Ok I lied, I will jot a few more words. My destination on stroll #1 was the 15th century Couvent des Minimes de la Plaine, a modest ruin of a small convent deep in residential territory (unlike most of the Grenoble’s old convents) which I discovered by accident a year ago while exploring the neighborhood. I hadn’t been back since and wanted to recapture that little spark of discovery.

There’s not a lot to see because the crumbling walls have been fenced off, apparently after previous restoration attempts were thwarted by a fire as recent as 2007 (at least the third fire in the convent’s history).

What I discovered this time around is that part of the building is more recent, though abandoned; there are bees; and the arts organization once housed in the convent is still vivant on the adjoining property, along with a community garden.

I saw a man in a beesuit getting in his car before I noticed the beehives behind the convent

Also featured in Detail Diary, but couldn’t pass up this exotic vine (Akebia quinata, chocolate vine) glowing on the community garden fence. I didn’t think to sniff the flowers then to find out if they smelled like chocolate.

Possily the most extensive arbor of wisteria I've seen, stretching half a block

hello

Stroll #2: to Colline du Mûrier

Wild garlic, Allium ursinum

The sky was dulled that day by the sable du Sahara, sand blowing high and hot over southern Europe from the Sahara Desert.

I was keen to visit Le Mûrier not only for the idyllic view from the picnic park², but also to catch a glimpse of one of the six forts of the ceinture fortifiée de Grenoble that I wrote about here, but hadn’t visited. The Fort du Mûrier is privately owned by a mysterious collective, which may have consisted of the two scruffy guys we saw, one camped out by a utility van with various handyman equipment, and another emerging from the apparently unlocked gate after we had been peering through the keyhole.

Fort du Mûrier

keyhole view of the fort

View of the Fort du Mûrier from the hill (left of the village)

Rendez-vous des Chasseurs—hunting club, presumably

A memorial for the members of the French Resistance from Le Mûrier (a village within Saint-Martin-d’Heres) designed by a survivor of the Buchenwald camp. Some of the Resistance members who helped infiltrate the Fort des Quatre Seigneurs came from here and were rounded up a few months later, even though the Nazis never uncovered that particular gunpowder plot.

A cascade on the descent to the valley

Back toward the city

1. Also a reward for submitting my US tax return.

2. When the sun hits that ridge just right, these hills sing.