Saint Antoine area
Saint Antoine area
In the Saint Antoine area, with its rolling hillsides on the Chambaran plateau, the wild imposing forests conceal a number of quaint little towns with curious façades of rolled pebbles and ochre-coloured rammed earth.
This tour will take you in the footsteps of two illustrious figures, smuggler Louis Mandrin and composer Hector Berlioz, then on to the Chambaran Natural Park. Saint Etienne de Saint Geoirs is the homeland of the famous smuggler and now better known for its airport.
Hector Berlioz was born about 12 km away in La Côte Saint André.
The house in which he was born is now a museum. This quaint little town was also home to the impressionist painter Jongkind.
Every summer music lovers flock to the Berlioz festival.
A marked heritage tour takes in the town's places of interest (chateau, 16th-century market hall).
A little further on, at Saint Siméon de Bressieux, visit a former factory whose magnificent glass roof has been preserved.
2 km down the road you will come to Bressieux, a small village dominated by the ruins of its red-brick feudal castle built in the 12th century.
Next, you will enter the Chambaran Natural Park, 300 hectares of enclosed land in which hundreds of European species of animals roam freely.
Continue in the direction of Marnans with its exceptional Romanesque church, used each summer for a music festival.
The next stage of the tour brings you to Roybon, a small town at the heart of Chambaran. In the town hall square you will find a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, a gift to the town from the sculptor Bartholdi.
Take a slight detour via La Trappe and visit its Cistercian abbey, Notre Dame du Sacré Cœur, founded in 1868. They abbey has a small shop selling local crafts and Chambaran cheese.
A little further on, the village of Dionay has a 10th-century Romanesque chapel dedicated to Saint Jean le Fromental.
This tour ends with a visit to Saint Antoine l'Abbaye, a medieval village backing on to the walls of the former abbey of Saint Antoine, a magnificent gothic building built in the 12th and 15th centuries.
Return to Grenoble via St-Marcellin.
Worth seeing:
Chambaran area for mountain biking and walking
Roybon recreation area
Worth tasting:
"Damnation Berlioz" chocolate (from the "Paradis du Chocolat" museum)
Cherry Rocher liqueurs
La Trappe hard cheeses
