Besançon

Yesterday I tagged along with Emilie and Cécile to Besançon, a city in Eastern France that about 90 minutes from Lausanne. They planned to spend the afternoon shopping, so I decided to take the opportunity to explore the city in parallel.

The layout of the city is pretty neat – the old town consists of a horseshoe-shaped peninsula that’s surrounded by the Doubs river. Here’s an aerial photo that I found online.

As we crossed a bridge into the old town, we had a nice view of the autumn leaves and their changing colors. It definitely felt like Fall out and was a bit crisp, but at least there wasn’t any rain.

Once we reached the old town our paths diverged and I began my sightseeing. First I headed to the Cathédrale Saint-Jean, which dates back to the 11th century and has a large clock tower.












The tower houses an 18th century astronomical clock that is a bit more intricate than any of the clocks that I've ever seen before.

During the walk to the cathedral, I passed some ancient Roman ruins. Apparently there are a couple of sites with Roman ruins in the area.

Next I walked to the nearby citadel, a fortification at the neck of the Besançon peninsula that served as a defense for the old town. The walk took me above the cathedral and through a park showing more signs of Fall.










The citadel is indeed a massive fortification. I didn’t go inside since I didn’t have a lot of time, but it was nonetheless impressive from the outside.










Given the citadel’s position atop Mont Saint-Étienne, it offers nice views of the old town below.










I then walked back down to the center of the old town and briefly stopped in a plaza with another church – the 18th century Église Saint-Pierre. You can't from the picture, but there were actually a ton of people out since it wasn't overly cold and the rain never materialized.

I then traversed the bridge at the end of the peninsula to see the nearby Église de la Madeleine (another 18th century church). I really liked the architecture, with the two front towers and large internal columns.











After touring the Madeleine, I walked back across the river to the old city and simply wandered the streets to take in the atmosphere.










I really liked the style of the buildings – some of which are stone and date back (at least in some form) to the middle ages. There is also apparently a Spanish Renaissance influence (at least according to Wikipedia).