The Bastille

I'm finally doing a full post about the Bastille, which I've mentioned once or twice before. It's basically the fortification on the hill just north of Grenoble. It's one of the landmarks of the city and is a great place to hike, especially since the view is great! It was finished in 1847 after 23 years of construction, but it was soon rendered obsolete and never saw any actual combat.

A closeup of the Bastille! There's part of the Italien quarter at the bottom, which is basically the quarter between the river and hill.  

Here's just another view, so you can see the Italien quarter better. The other old parts of Grenoble are just on the other side of the river.

 Some very cool stairs up one of the paths to the Bastille. It takes forever to get up! The ones I'm standing on here are 2x the size of normal stairs, while the ones down on the right are normal size

I saw several people using ski poles as walking sticks.

Behind the fortress are the Mandrin Caves which were dug to be able to flank the enemy attacking the fort. 

The bottom entrance to the Mandrin Caves

Just outside the other entrance to the caves, and here are some big windows/holes through which the troops could have fired at the ennemy. This is behind the top of the Bastille

Even farther up the mountain is Mount Jalla which has some ruins and a memorial dedicated to the mountain troops.

Even farther behind the Bastille is Mount Jalla, you can see the ruins at the top.

Here I'm standing on top of one of the ruins' pillars. The flat area on the other hilltop is actually the Bastille. It is sort of camoflauged from behind. The little hill just behind that is where the Mandrin Caves are.

There are several different trails to go up the bastille, but at the bottom of one of them is a beautiful garden called Jardin des Dauphins.

A picture I took on my way down the Bastille. I took a different path on the western side as opposed to the eastern side where the stairs are. However, there are plenty of other ways to hike up it.

Some of the Gardens. On the right is a spiral staircase that leads down through a cool tower that is about 3 stories high.

Here's a view of the staircase/tower I mentioned in the last photo. I was actually standing on the Eiffel Tower thing (which is the next picture)

And here's that Eiffel Tower thing I mentioned. I think it's so much fun!!! I saw another when I was in Nice, it was on the big hill in a park area near the waterfall. In this picture there's a couple that I saw climb it and kiss at the top. They're just climbing down here, I thought you ladies reading this would think that's "cute"

More Gardens! I don't know who the statue is of  : (