Montbéliard 2

What a quiet night! 

A clear blue sky greeted us this morning. We had breakfast and thought that an early morning visit to centre-ville before the day heats up was a good idea. 

We were stopping just over l’Allan River giving us good access to the town. The first things we noticed was the attention giving to the parks and flowers around the town, and, the large amount of work being undertaken to make the place much more people friendly. 

The dominating feature of the town is the château. The Château de Montbéliard, also known as the Château des ducs de Württemberg is a fortress located on an outcropping rock that overlooks the town. It was in the Württemberg family from the 14th century until the French Revolution when it became the property of the state. From that time until 1933 it was used as a military garrisons. After this it became a local museum. 

The Dukes were responsible for the introduction of Lutheranism into the town in the 16th century. The architecture from those times is very much in evidence today. Later,  in its history,  the French made a great effort to bring Catholicism to the area, and so, a grand church, Église St Mainboeuf, directly above the Lutheran church, Temple St Georges, was built! 

Around the streets interesting buildings caught our attention, with a mix of styles - and some very practical solutions to problems that might arise. 

The house in the photo at the bottom left has an interesting spouting!




The little shop with the yellow frontage is where we bought our bread, not that interesting I hear you say, but here was the first black baguette we had seen. The lovely lady in the shop explained that it was made with cacoa and that it aided digestion. 

The World Cup football theme was running through many shops and streets, but the headlines this morning seemed to be suggesting that Les Bleus were a little lucky in yesterday’s game against Australia! Hmmmm!

Some other aspects caught our attention around the town!

We returned to the van for lunch and to give our feet a little rest. 

A little way over yonder the locals were celebrating all things American - baseball, music, bands,  boot scooting, cheer leaders, roadster bikes and American fries and hamburgers! The festival was well organised with a program that ran through most of the day. Interesting to see the clientele attending!

All in all, a very enjoyably full day. 

Montbéliard

Today we followed the course of  le Doubs  further upstream this morning to Montbéliard. We can see why this area is particularly popular with cyclists with a cycle track running the full extent of the river. In fact, the guy in the tourist office said, you can cycle right from the Baltic through to the centre of France on the Eurovelo 6 cycle track. 

A varied day again! A visit to the supermarket, followed by a wander around the Saturday morning market in Montbéliard,  before settling down for the afternoon next to the marina on le Doubs. 

This afternoon we visited the  beautiful le parc du Prés la Rose, just a little way along the river, to cool off and to enjoy the local festivities in the park. 

We noticed a lot of children, with their parents, dressed in what looked like tradition Dutch clothing. It turned out that they were children from a local Lutherian school performing very traditional songs sung in the language of the region, “old French”, as it was explained to us. 

This part Franche-Comté was once of the territory of the Dukes of  Württemberg, German dukes, who introduced the  Lutherian church to Montbéliard. 

Following this presentation was a performance by a group of men with their alpenhorns. An appreciative crowd had gathered to listen to the music, perhaps many being proud parents. 

Moules en vin (mussels in white wine) for supper tonight! Delicious!

Baume-les-Dames

From the village of Laissey we followed le Doubs river to Baume-les-Dames, passing some stunning scenery on the way.  At Le Saut de Gamache we caught a glimpse of  le Doubs winding its way through the mountains, villages and farmland of this region. 

Baume-les-Dames, a town of nearly 6000 residents, takes its name from the many surrounding caves in the valley of  le Doubs and the nuns of the abbey founded here in the 7th century. It was the abbey that gave rise to the city. 

The nuns of the abbey were exclusively from noble families, and thus became very wealthy over time, enabling it to build the current abbey church. This sumptuous church was closed after only 60 years due to the French Revolution. Today it houses a most interesting art exhibition. 

We were fascinated last evening when no fewer than 5 trains carrying at least 400 Peugeot cars each passed through the village of Laissey. The birth place of Peugeot is just a few km up the river where there is still a large production plant. 





Hilton smelling the flowers on a warmish day!

The beautiful Plain tree has been pruned and tendered over the years, but it was interesting  to see that nature had  still imposed itself on the parking sign placement! 

 

And, this is what we found in a tourist document that was outlining some of the cultural idiosyncrasies of Baume-les-Dames! One local treat we weren’t tempted to experience!

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.)

Besançon 3

Much cooler this morning after another night of rain. No wonder the place is green as... and the city has workers cutting and slashing wherever we go. 

Such a lovely place we are in, we have decided to stay another day. Some housekeeping this morning before we took another long walk around the parts of the city we hadn’t ventured into at this stage. 

Wherever we went the whole town is built from the light coloured sandstone, with no evidence of timber homes anywhere to be seen. Everywhere in France everyone takes a two hour break for lunch. The streets are generally quiet, most shops are closed and parking metres are free. We invariably will arrive in a town during this period, and if you need to buy something then you have to hang around until 2 o’clock when people are back at work. 

Some more random photos from around Besançon:

It appears, too, that the schools send their students home during this time.  I’m sure there are exceptions to these comments, but it does seem to extend the day for the community. The French must be okay with it because there is no move to change. It was interesting that the French Canadians haven’t adopted this in their culture - nor the need for the daily baguette!

Besançon 2

Very late to rise this morning! The city was well and truly at work before the shutters were raised. A much cooler morning but no rain in sight. A walk along the River Doubs in the cool of the day was very pleasant passing through an interesting riverside parkland with some intricate planting. 


Returning by the city side of the river, The Citadelle was an inviting challenge. So, to the top I went - a few hundred steps later and I was feeling my age. The massive construction nowadays is the home of a zoo, a museum, a multimedia presentation, an aquarium, a museum of the resistance, and other “stuff”!  

The afternoon was about getting over this morning! A little bit of sorting and planning, along with some further R ‘n R. 

An interesting piece of urban art near where we stopped. 

Another pic of The Citadelle and Hilton!