Jardin des Dauphins

So here we are, in the Dolfins’ Gardens. This is the starting point for the section of the long-distance hiking path -GR9 in Isère/Savoie. It is over a thousand kilometres long and stretches from the Jura mountain range to the Mediterranean sea. Today, we’re just going to walk through the gardens of the former fortifications of Lesdiguières. Lesdiguières was an important figure in the Dauphiné. He was the last constable of France. At the end of the 16th century, during the bloody French Wars of Religion, Lesdiguières, fighting for Henry the 4th, the Protestant King of France, took Grenoble from the Catholics and ordered a number of changes. One of these was the fortification of the Bastille hill. In 1785, Jean-Baptiste Dolle, a wealthy merchant from the Isère region, bought this piece of rock and undertook, at great expense, to build a castle surrounded by magnificent gardens. Known as the “Roman house”, it was ironically renamed the “Château de la folie”, meaning the Castel of Madness, by the locals in recognition of the enormous cost of its construction. It has a large heated greenhouse where tropical plants grow, as well as orange, lemon, palm and banana trees. There was even a monkey! Extravagance reached its peak during a huge party in honour of the Dauphin’s Parliament. There was talk of 25,000 guests, fireworks, shows and incredible feasts. During the Revolution, Dolle voluntarily left his entire estate to the nation. In the 19th century, the castle was disfigured by a quarry. The garden was refurbished in the 1960s and is now a sunny, sheltered spot with a genuine Mediterranean climate. Don’t be surprised to see cacti, agaves, olive trees and mimosas.