Between Brangues and the Rhône

Description

Leave your car in the car park at the main square, near the church, opposite Brangues town hall (Isère).

The entire route is marked by yellow PR^® waymarks (Petite Randonnée – Short Hike) or black arrows on a yellow background. The first part takes you along some relatively quiet and pleasant little roads.

(D/A) Turn right (southeast) down Rue du Bourg and keep going until you reach a crossroads at the end of the village.

(1) Turn left down Rue du Pavé. Go past the houses in Le Martin and follow the road through fields of crops and orchards until you reach a small river, the Save (a tributary of the Rhone that is about 12 kilometres long).

(2) Cross over the river on a small bridge, and keep going straight on through the flood plain. The region was sadly in the media in 1990, when there was an impressive and memorable flood here. Keep following along the road until you reach another small river, the Huert, which is also a tributary of the Rhone.

(3) Walk along this river to the right for about 600 metres.

(4) Cross the river to your the left when you reach Pigner. Ignore a path off to your right and then another to the left. At the next crossing, take a 90° left turn to reach the dyke a few metres from the Rhone.

(5) Turn left to follow the dyke northwest to the hamlet of Isle.

(6) Just after Isle, turn right onto Grand Brotteau island, which you then follow all the way along its western shore.

(7) The island's fauna is rich and varied: herons, swans, cormorants, birds of prey, etc, together with many other more discreet species than those mentioned, of course.

(8) At the pumping station, which marks the end of Grand Brotteau island, turn right and keep going until you reach Grolée bridge.

(9) Don’t cross the bridge, but instead cross over the D60 and take the path on the right to continue along the river banks along a recent stretch of the Via Rhona which takes you along the shore for about 1km.

(10) Turn left and then left again into the small hamlet of Tours, then take the first right towards La Garenne.
Take a right and immediate left and continue along a footpath. Ignore a track off to the left, and then cross over the following track before reaching the wall of Brangues castle (XIV), which was purchased by the writer and diplomat Paul Claudel in 1927. The castle still belongs to the Claudel family and the writer’s tomb is located in the park. His tomb is visible when the door is open.

(11) The path continues along the wall of the estate and then joins the D60. Turn left and walk past the cemetery (12), then keep going until you reach Brangues and the car park opposite the town hall, where the walk ends (D/A).