Start your journey in Grenoble. Grenoble is a city of around 158,000 inhabitants (550,000 taking into account the metropolitan area) in the French Alps. The climate is quite cold in winter, with days of snow almost every year. Summers are known to be hot, as mountains surrounding the town stop any wind. Grenoble is crossed by two rivers, the Drac and the Isère ("the lion and the serpent"), and is surrounded by three mountain chains, the Vercors, Chartreuse and Belledonne. The city is renowned for its universities on the campus, for its scientific research centers in the northeast of the city, including Minatec [1] for nanotechnologies, CEA [2] the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, a French National Center for Scientific Research agency [3], the European Synchrotron [4] for high-brilliance source of X-rays, the Institut Laue-Langevin [5] for the most powerful source of neutron in the world, the EMBL [6] the Europe’s flagship laboratory for the life sciences as well as for its industrial center in the western suburbs : Meylan, Montbonnot and Crolles including high-tech companies such as STmicroelectronics and Motorola. Therefore it hosts a relatively large population of foreign scientists and students.

Starting in Grenoble, you can enjoy low fares and a comfortable trip in a modern, well-equipped coach. easyBus.com.. Perpignan (Perpinyà in Catalan) is the capital of the department of Pyrénées-Orientales, the Northern Catalonia part of France and is situated about 15km from the sea. Perpignan is home to about 100,000 people, and has two rivers flowing through it; with the Têt to the north, and the Basse through the centre. This article also covers Argelès-sur-Mer, one of the major seaside resorts in the south of France (300 days of sunshine per year). That old and lively Catalan village is built around its church and museum.