Things to do in Grenoble

Landmark · Above the Isère, north of the centre

A hillside fortress reached by the spherical cable cars that opened in 1934 — the first urban cable car in the world — with the whole Y-shaped valley laid out beneath.

Local tip: Take the bubbles up and walk down through the Jardin des Dauphins and the Guy-Pape park: it takes forty minutes, it is free, and it is the walk locals actually do. Go on a clear winter day and you will be above the inversion, in sun, looking down at grey.

Culture · Place Lavalette, by the Isère

One of the strongest modern art collections in France outside Paris, built on a curator's early enthusiasm for the avant-garde in the 1920s.

Local tip: The twentieth-century rooms are the reason to come — Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Soulages — and they are usually near-empty. There is a good Egyptian collection nobody talks about downstairs, and the sculpture garden outside is free.

Nature · 20–40 km south-west, above the city

A limestone massif of cliffs, gorges and high meadows rising straight off the valley, with a resistance history it has not forgotten.

Local tip: The Villard-de-Lans bus from the station gets you onto the plateau without a car in about an hour. In winter it is the cross-country skiing rather than the downhill that is worth it; in summer, walk the Gorges du Bruyant or the Vallon de la Fauge and start early, because the drive down is grim in the evening.

Neighborhood · Right bank of the Isère

The oldest quarter, a narrow Italianate strip between the river and the cliff, with a museum inside a deconsecrated church that has a sixth-century crypt under it.

Local tip: Cross the passerelle at dusk and eat on the quay rather than in the centre — this side has the light and the mountain view and the centre does not. The Musée archéologique is free and takes half an hour.

Nature · 25 km north

A quieter, wooded, more secretive massif than the Vercors, with the Grande Chartreuse monastery at the heart of it — closed to visitors, and explained at a museum nearby.

Local tip: You cannot visit the monastery itself and you should not try; the Musée de la Grande Chartreuse at La Correrie is the sanctioned answer and it is genuinely interesting. The Col de Porte and Charmant Som are twenty-five minutes from the city and are where locals go for a two-hour walk after work.

Food · Under the railway viaduct, west of the centre

A large, cheap, unglamorous covered and open-air market strung under the rail arches, and the working-class square next to it.

Local tip: This is where the city actually shops, as opposed to the pretty Halles Sainte-Claire in the centre. Go on a Sunday morning, buy from the producers at the far end rather than the resellers at the near end, and eat at one of the Maghrebi places on Saint-Bruno afterwards.