Laissey

The music (?) overnight from campers, located quite some distance away,  was of a deep base nature and it started at sundown and was still thumping away at 5 am this morning.  One would have thought that French neighbours, close by, would have called the Gendarmes, but no, the campers remain  to share their inspirations with other unsuspecting travellers! We have moved on!

Yes, moved on this morning after three pleasant days in Besançon. Did some shopping as we were leaving, before following the Doubs River towards Baume-les-Dames. The river valley was a great contrast to the hurly-burly of the  city. We stopped at the village of Laissey, located on the river which divides this part of the Forêt de Vaite, for lunch and decided to stay for the rest of the day. Such is the life of motorhomers!

The village of Laissey, the River Doubs and some wild bell flowers. 
This beautiful river valley is so quiet and peaceful. Even the odd train passing by doesn’t disturb the serenity. We went for a walk along the river which appears to have a more than normal amount of water for this time of the year - a product of all the rain this part of France has received recently. The Doubs River in its self is a large flowing river which flows into the River Saône at Chalon-sur-Saône, which in turn flows into the Rhône River in Lyon. 

The Marie (City Hall) and schoole (top left), plus other pics of the village. 
We returning later in the afternoon to the peace and quiet of this small village. 

Of interest to us given the debate occurring in Hobart, at the moment, was the public transport infrastructure that has been adopted in the last two bigger cities we have visited. Both Dijon and Besançon have reduced the number of cars in the cities by investing and giving priority to trams/buses over private cars. 

Besançon is a city much the same size as Hobart. In 2015 the city had a population of 116,676, and in the metropolitan area  250,563.

What has been done is that the link roads into the cities were multi lanes vehicle roads, now they have single lanes for cars and the rest of the road, the centre portion, is for use of trans/buses only. This arrangement goes quite a few kilometres from the centre of the cities. Public transport is used and there didn’t appear to be any gridlock in the early or later part of the day.  And, also, large free car parks on the outskirts of the city. Interesting!! (Perhaps a plan, Churchill Ave to be for cars and buses, with Sandy Bay Road being devoted solely to buses between 7.00 am and 9.30 am, and 4.30 pm to 7.00 pm - now that would cause a stir!!!! So much for my bright ideas!

(The red lines are mine.)