Route Napoleon starting at Grenoble

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Grenoble

   Grenoble is the capital of the French Alps in everything but title, a big, studenty, slightly industrial city set in a flat basin where three valleys meet, the Isère, the Drac and the Grésivaudan. The mountains here are not a backdrop but a wall: the Vercors on one side, Chartreuse on another, Belledonne on the third, so that wherever you look in the city there is rock rising above the rooftops. It is the end of the Route Napoléon in this case, the road Napoleon took in March 1815 when he landed from Elba and marched north to reclaim power, and the story goes that the people of Grenoble opened the gates to him and the army simply melted into his ranks.

   Read the complete Grenoble write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Grenoble sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Sisteron.

2. 2. Sisteron

   Sisteron is the gate of Provence, a town of seven and a half thousand on the Durance river, where the valley pinches into a narrow gap, the Clue de Sisteron, between two walls of tilted limestone. The great citadel, a fortress on the rock above the town, has watched over the passage since the Middle Ages, and the present walls date largely from the sixteenth century. Napoleon passed through on 5 March 1815, on his way from the Riviera to Grenoble, and the Route Napoléon is marked by signs and eagle plaques along the road, from here to the north.

   Read the complete Sisteron write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sisteron comes up 56 km in. Next is Castellane.

3. 3. Castellane

   Castellane sits at the bottom of a rock, and the rock is the point. The town, at a little over seven hundred metres in the valley of the Verdon, is overlooked by a limestone crag nearly two hundred metres high, with a small chapel on top, Notre-Dame du Roc, which has been a pilgrimage site for centuries. A steep path climbs to it in about half an hour, and the view over the town's red roofs, the river and the surrounding mountains is superb. The town itself is small, with about sixteen hundred people, but it feels bigger in summer, when visitors fill the cafés.

   Read the complete Castellane write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least 171 km in you reach Castellane. Next is Grasse.

4. 4. Grasse

   Grasse smells of something before you can see it. The old perfume capital of France climbs a steep limestone hillside about a dozen kilometres from the Mediterranean, high enough above Cannes to catch a cooler, more mountain air, and for generations the fields of jasmine, rose and tuberose on the terraces around the town fed its distilleries. Perfume came here from the leather trade: glovemakers in the seventeenth century began scenting their gloves, and the business outgrew the leather. Today the town still has big perfume houses and a handful of working fields, and in May the rose harvest and in late summer the jasmine are the times to be around.

   Read the complete Grasse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Grasse, late in the day. Next is Cannes.

5. 5. Cannes

   Planning note

   Cannes sits at 301 km, late in the day.

Recorded source links

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