Route Napoleon: Sisteron to Grenoble

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Gap.

2. 2. Gap

   Gap is the highest prefecture in France, sitting at about seven hundred and fifty metres in a wide, sunny basin in the Hautes-Alpes, with mountains on every side. People often ride through it without more than a glance, which is a pity, because the town, with some forty thousand people, makes a comfortable halt on a mountain route: fuel stations at every entrance, supermarkets, a pleasant old centre with a pedestrian core, and cafés where you can sit in the sun. The Alpine light is strong here and the air dry, with something like three hundred days of sunshine a year, a figure the town likes to repeat.

   Read the complete Gap write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Gap comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grenoble.

3. 3. 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

   The route ends here after 153 km.