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The Île Crémieu plateau slopes towards the east, where the limestone formations disappear under a cover of glacial and fluvio-glacial alluvium. The current model was shaped during the retreat of the glaciers, as the moraines formed reliefs overlaying the fluvio-glacial alluvium layers. The meltwater from this same glacial front flowed both to the north (Rhône) and to the south (Bourbre).

The territory considered here corresponds to the flow towards the Rhône in the form of a delta. It is bounded by the reliefs of the Île Crémieu to the west, by the current course of the Rhône and the Bugey to the northeast, and by the Morestel hills to the south.

Today maize and intensive poplar silviculture have generally replaced the former damp zones. Tobacco and grain is raised where the water table is deepest.

The agricultural landscape is divided into large plots, often bounded by streams, but the drainage pattern is very artificialised in the valley floors.

This meeting point at the junction between the hills of the Dauphiné foreland and the Bugey is more an enclave than a crossroads.

It is from Montalieu-Vercieu to the north that it is possible to see clearly how the Île Crémieu plateau slopes gently towards the east, pulling one's regard towards the Rhône plain, itself a major feature. It seems almost to want to yield its place to the plain, to the large maize fields, the poplar groves and the occasional ponds that add a lively note to a rather uniform ensemble. But, as with the Avenières plain, the river banks are not very accessible.

On the borders of the broad plain, the landscape is marked by small valleys. Around Courtenay , a very distinct perched village, the urbanisation is already more diffuse than on the interior plateau. In Arandon,between the small hills, the marshland and the ponds, the landscape is more natural and wild, but the views of this are blocked by masses of vegetation. The same is true of the landscape at Creys-Mepieu , where picturesque hills are closed off by afforestation.

The features that are present, the villages and their church towers, the ponds, and even the neighbouring rocks, call for a more considered mise en scène, because they alone can divert attention from an environment on the Rhône side marked by industrial limestone quarries, cemeteries, the nuclear power plant at Creys-Malville and diffuse urbanisation. Exceptions like old Montalieuonly prove the rule. Any "opportunities" generated by other value models exist only thanks to the existing motifs.