Rhône-Alpes

Like its neighbor of the south, the Rhone-Alps area passed to the wire of its history fom the Ligurians domination to the Celts, the Romans, Burgondes or the Francs... Successively annexed by the Germanic Empire then possession of Dauphiné, the area was definitively attached to the kingdom of France in the neighbourhoods of XVIth century. Founded into 43 before JC, Lyon, its historical capital, is the second town of France and is considered by many french as the capital of the gastronomy. Lyon indeed has the chance to be in the heart of an area with many soils and to be convince of this, you'll just have to take a lunch in one of those so typical "Bouchons" Lyonnais. Those little restaurants will help you to discover the richness of this gastronomy, from the Tablier de sapeur to the andouillettes, from the Cervelle de Canuts (litteraly : brain of Silk worker) to the Saint-Marcellin cheese...

But the Rhone-Alps area is not limited to the Lyons kitchen, it is also Dombes with its frogs and its fish, Savoy, with its herds and its cheeses, from Beaufort to the Tomme without forgetting Reblochon and Emmenthaler cheese; it is still Ardeche and its chestnuts, Drôme or Vivarais a cook really closed from the mediteranean one... It is finally a generous ground where the vine is everywhere, with côte-du-Rhone and the Côtes Rôties while passing through Saint-Joseph and the Clairette de Die, without forgetting the wines of Savoy such as Roussette, the Beaujolais wines, Brouilly and Chirouble... We cannot close yet this page without evoking there to finish alcohols of the area and more particularly Chartreuse, elixir which has made the fortune of the monks of Dauphiné.