Lost in Grenoble

I decided to rent a bike from the train station for a month. It's dirt cheap, 105 Euros (90 for the safety deposit and 15 for student rent). The bike comes equip with a front and rear light, helmet, basket, and a lock. One of the best deals I've seen in a long time. As a first bike adventure, I went to find Nico's place for a small get-together (Nico is a graduate student in the Vivaudou lab). I left the train station around 6:30PM, Christophe was nice enough to drop me off at the train station and show me the Metro Velo office (this is where you rent bikes).

I started out my journey with a map, but due to the location of the train station (circled in red on the map below) it was hard to tell which direction was north, east, south, or west since it is surrounded by tall buildings on all sides. Nonetheless, I began my journey down the road a bit, following an underpass, and then through the local shopping areas. The blue outline sums up to some degree my "great" sense of direction and how "deftly" I can navigate the city. The summary may look completely wacky, but when you consider that some of the street signs, especially in the older parts of town, may be a 1'x1' sign on the side of a building it's quite easy to get very lost, very fast. I'm pretty sure I made three attempts to head southward, but managed to circle around and return to the train station within my first 50 minutes of the journey.

Once I got on cours Jean Jaures, I began to head south, though it turned out too south. The map doesn't extend far enough to show where I ended up, but it was about 1-1.5 km more south. By that point I though it might be better to stop, look for a bus stop, and see if they had a map saying,"Voici etes" (You are here). Voila! There was a map. Finding Nico's place was fairly straightforward from there (missed a couple of turns here and there).

But I must admit Europe makes a very conscious effort to provide services to students at a well-discounted price be it bus, train, or even bike rentals. I'll most definitely take advantage of this opportunity to travel as I probably won't have the ability to later into my graduate career.

Here are a few tips I've come up with for traveling around town:

1) Bike's are fun to ride and cheap for students, if you can rent one, do it.
2) Maps are your friend, but landmarks, like the Bastille, are your better friends. If there are people who are familiar with the area, they are your best friends.
3) Sometimes walking around town is better for your first excursion. The pace is slower and allows you to familiarize yourself with smaller sections of town. You can actually walk a fair amount (on the order of kilometers) in a 6 hour period.