Hector Berlioz was born in La Côte-Saint-André in 1803, and the town has never let anyone forget it. His family home is now a museum, and every summer a festival in his name fills the courtyard of the château with orchestras. It is a fine reason to linger, but the town has other charms too: a huge medieval covered market hall with a timber roof, steep lanes, and the distillery of Cherry Rocher, which has been making liqueurs here since the early eighteenth century.
The town clings to a slope on the edge of the Bièvre plain, a broad, flat corridor between Lyon and Grenoble, with the wooded Chambaran plateau rising to the south. From the higher streets, the view on a clear morning takes in the long blue line of the Vercors, the Chartreuse and, beyond, the snowy summits of Belledonne. That view is a good tonic before heading towards the Oisans and the hairpins of Alpe d'Huez.
The roads around here are relaxed and rural. The Bièvre itself is flat and straight, but the Chambaran lanes wind through chestnut woods and small valleys with very little traffic, ideal for warming up tyres and minds. Watch for gravel in the forest corners and for farm machinery in summer. The plain can be windy, and in midsummer the heat bounces off the fields.
La Côte-Saint-André has fuel, bakeries, cafés and restaurants around the market hall, and it is a much nicer place to eat than the motorway service areas on the A48. A plate of local walnuts or a gratin dauphinois brings you firmly into Isère territory. Fill up here; once you head into the Chambaran woods the villages get small, and the next big service town is Grenoble or Voiron.