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Here we are also in the molassic basin of the Dauphiné foreland, a broad ancient delta peppered with pudding stones. The relatively chaotic relief is covered in moraines, fluvio-glacial formations and recent fluviatile alluvial deposits in the valleys.

The valleys (Hien, Bourbre, Paladru and Ainan along the eastern border) were occupied by glacier tongues from the Rhône, causing deepening and over-deepening (the Bourbre marshlands, Paladru Lake).

There are no major towns in this area, which is traversed by the Lyon-Grenoble motorway. Its charm is primarily rural and its reputation is based on two major sites, Paladru Lake and the Château de Virieu.

Landscapes symbolic of French Romanticism: these are the landscapes of the Vals. They give a lie to the adjective "cold" attached to the land wherein they lie.

It was Lamartine , strolling near the Château de Pupetières, not far from Virieu in the upper Bourbre Valley, who did justice to the charm of this area in his poem, Le Vallon (The Valley), which is still unrivalled in its genre, and is endlessly cited in every anthology of French poetry, even more frequently than Le Lac (The Lake) itself.

This poem touches on all the motifs that go into the composition of the valley, which is in fact a motif itself. It is considered by everyone who knows our country to be one of the most characteristic evocations of a valley, even more than the higher and more picturesque valleys:

Trees fringe the hills and hide the path below

The peaceful silence of a chequered shade.

The first motif is that of the path which, together with the road makes a landscape experience possible. Next comes the woods which cover the hillsides and envelops the scene in the chiaroscuro so typical of these secluded places. Finally there are the water motifs, first of all the spring and the brook , which inhabit the valley, which resounds with their babbling, nourishing the daydreams of the solitary wanderer:

Two streamlets trace the slopes, their winding course

Find consolation in the rippling sound.

With this poem, Lamartine joined up with French poetic tradition from the times of Théophile de Viau (1590-1626), for whom the valley was "secret, and entirely veiled in sombre song". But it was above all Hugo who developed all its harmonies. Since then, our valleys have always been shady, deep, mysterious, dancing in subdued light and inhabited by living silence . The landscape experience here is immediate, and has no need of open distant panoramas. It is interior and is expressed in metaphors and definitive personifications: the valley is a nest, a cradle, a bosom, a refuge, an oasis of peace, the supreme retreat; the brook is its partner and our confidant in our flights of fancy; the flora and fauna also become as familiar to us as our nearest and dearest. It is an experience that calls to mind another valley of the Isère, the Vallon du silence of the Grande Chartreuse, which is itself evoked – this is undoubtedly no accident – by the ancient Chartreuse de la Courrerie.

The Vals area is composed of landscapes like this. There are no major towns, as if its scale could not accommodate them, which has spared it the perverse impact of the A43 that crosses it. The population is gathered in villages and hamlets, whose tightly knit skylines deserve to be preserved, above all on attractive sites where real estate pressure is being felt, for example, around Paladru Lake and Virieu, in the upper Bourbre Valley. The hillsides are one of the major motifs of these landscapes, and any urban build-up is felt to mar their natural finery, that is, the woods that crown them and the meadows that unfold like drapery, as in the Ainan Valley. It is nevertheless advisable to avoid excessive closure by the woods themselves, which could undermine the view of certain monuments, like the Château de Virieu or, in another register, the Chirens marshland. Using this logic, all the omnipresent characteristic water motifs – springs, brooks, marshes, ponds and lakes – should be accessible to walkers .

Paladru Lake itself, the fifth largest natural lake in France and well known for its Neolithic habitats, deserves to be accessible to everyone, especially in light of its steep northern banks. Its beauty is captured by the words of the poet:

As twilight descends over the sombre valley,

I love the deep silvery lake, in whose mirror

The dark clouds promenade.

Les Orientales, IV