Besançon

After raining all night we woke to a cloudy but dryer morning. It was a pleasant drive through the Franche-Comté area with many attractive,old medieval villages, surrounded by lush gardens, dotted along the way and showing signs of their age. 

We arrived at Besançon late morning, filled with petrol and gas, checked the tyre pressures and shopped for some groceries.  We later moved on to our stopover along side the River Doubs under the imposing rock outcrop, where the citadel now stands, that has defined Besançon for the last 2000 years. 

It wasn’t long after we arrived that serious rain started to fall. We resigned ourselves to the fact that this was going to be a day long event, but late in the afternoon the rain disappeared and the sun emerged in all its French splendour. This was the signal to get out and put a few steps together.  We were in trouble yesterday when we failed to complete our daily quota! Thanks Madeleine!! 

Besançon, the capital of Franche-Comté, is an attractive town with interesting stone buildings that sits in a loop of the wide River Doubs. Besançon was briefly a Gallic fortress before Caesar smashed the Gauls’ resistance in 58 BC. Strong outer walls were developed during the Middle Ages and the famous military engineer Vauban added the existing citadelle in the seventeenth century. Besançon began as an ecclesiastical center and is now an industrial one, specializing in precision engineering. 

The dominating citadel....

... again!

The Conservatorium of Music building and the interesting graffiti wall opposite. 

We took a very pleasant walk along the riverside into the centre of the town. Being a Monday many businesses were not open, and with the early rain, not a lot of people were in the town. The very light coloured stone dominated the building in the centre. Our walk took us past an interesting Conservatorium of Music building. We were pleased that we were able to get out for a walk and be able to visit the city.