Campanile Besancon-Ouest Chateaufarine Besançon

... the tale of captivity of Francois Bonivard. Francois was chained to a pillar in the dungeon for 6 years. We had a glimpse of the Swiss Alps which we will have to cross this weekend! YIKES. <br><br>Weather is good&#8230;car is great&#8230;.being out of America&#8230;..priceless!<br><br>Sorry No photos....the connection speed is very slow.......

... a massive fortress at the top of the hill of course. It now houses various concerns including a zoo with wallabies. We looked at the history of the citadel..all about war/defence and also a history of the resistance in France in WW2. That was one of the most sobering and comprehensive collections either of us have ever seen and we have been talking about it since.<br>After that we headed up to Kayserburg another beautiful village but more ...

... gotten there around 10 and left around 6. We had not expected to spend all day long there. We took the bus back to our car and drove off to find our hotel. We knew how to get to the hotel from the highway we'd taken into the city, but we didn't know where the highway was. So, we expected a long drive trying to find the hotel. However, we got really lucky and made a couple of random turns that took us right to the hotel. It took us less than 10 ...

An early start as the road noise at 6am was incredible; interspersed with regular trains and their sirens its one of noisiest sites I've been on. Are there any campsites away from railway lines? Feeling a bit miserable this morning turning over the persistant failures in various area's of my life to date. But got on the path. Which turned out to be alongside the previously mentioned busy road. Then the path ended and I was mixing it with ...

I got back last night at about 10 and discovered that there were two unfamiliar people trying to get in the hostel. they were a large middle aged man and a thin slightly older woman. All the posessions they were carrying seemed to be contained in two carrier bags. Being a bit uneasy I went back down the stairs leaving them to negociate access with the hotels owners. So I went for a walk round the block and went back to the room. It turned out that the man, his wife and two young ...

Last night I wondered over to the paddlers fire and they invited me to share some wine. It turned out that the tent was quite hard to locate. But in the end it turned out good. They were just out for the weekend, sleeping under a tarp and cooking over a fire. Although they did have to shuffle cars. There is something magic about a campfire and I must do it at some point. In the tree's I slept reasonably apart from being too warm! If fact it was much ...

... cycle tourer's are slovakian; we're highly unlikely to share a language! Last night the gig in the hostel turned out to be a dance to traditional french music; basically an accordian, guitarist and drummer. They were pretty good keeping up a lively pace. The actual dancing was of the formal "couples" kind where they all rotated around the dance floor anticlockwise. Everyone seemed to know the steps, even for the dances where they all stood in lines and turned. That said ...

... whatever hill we were on no one cared if we were in the right place or not. I bored of nature reasonably quickly and decided to head back, in which I managed to get completely lost. Stupid middle of no where places surrounded by stupid grapes. If a place has a population of less than 3000 it&#8217;s dead to me. Or if it has no internet cafes, or wireless. Dead. To. Me. And now remember those power sockets? Well I decided that discretion was the better part ...

... odd if you ask me. Since I realized that this particular vendor was British and knew that I was an English speaker, I decided to respond in English. "I'm actually American," I replied back. "So I can tell now, " he replied back in his very strong British accent. The both of us laughed because it was a very odd situation: a British bloke working for a butcher's in Besancon selling traditional Franche Comte style sausages talking to a customer ...

... enjoyed my day in Besancon and I recommend the city to any visitor to France...it is off the beaten path and it is a very interesting and beautiful city and the people of Besancon are just gorgeous, sweet and kind. You definately need to know some French if you visit this city though since it is off the beaten path, but if you plan on visiting Switzerland or plan on traveling to France soon, stop by in little Besancon...it's a gem worth discovering.