Eleven completed tours and not once have we visited the Franche-Comte part of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte Region. That had to change and so we came to Jura. Jura, together with French departments of Doubs, Haute-Saone and Belfort forms Franche-Comte; a beautiful land of mountains, lakes and rivers, picturesque villages and towns, small vineyards and a huge forest (the Foret de Chaux – the second largest forest in France). We started in Dole, a small attractive town on the banks of the River Doubs which is dominated by the impressive Collegiale Notre Dame de Dole on Place Nationale.
At least part of this imposing church can be seen from just about any point in the town but it is the view from the Avenue de Lair, on the south side of the river, which most appeals. Inside it is stunning. It houses several small chapels, the Sainte Chapelle du Miracle de Faverney being the one which attracts most attention. This renaissance style chapel serves to house a relic that was miraculously saved from a fire at Faverney Abbey. However, to my mind, two other chapels are worthy of special mention – one dedicated to France’s fallen in WWI and another to recognise the surprisingly large number of church officials in Jura who were guillotined during the French Revolution.
Dole was once the capital of the Jura although this honour now belongs to Besancon. It’s a small attractive riverside town of less than 25,000 people. The old town, which was built around l’Eglise Notre Dame de Dole, is not very large but neither is it lacking in character. Connected by a jumble of stairways, narrow winding streets and passageways, most of the town’s older buildings are made of pale pink or white stone and date from the 17th century or even later. The most impressive of these is the Hotel de Dieu, the main part of which was completed in 1636. It served as a hospital for the poor until 1992 when it was transformed into a mediatheque (a multimedia library and storage centre for the municipal archives).
To ensure I didn’t miss out on any of the town’s more interesting features (not that my debacle at Les Riceys is still fresh in my mind) I visited the Dole Tourist Office on Place Grevy and obtained a map of what is known as the Circuit du Chat Perche (which broadly translates as the perched cat trail). It’s a 4 kilometre circuit connecting the town’s principal features and the map provides a brief description of each.
I’ll let the photos do the talking…
… although the area behind Rue Louis Pasteur does perhaps warrant special mention.
Louis Pasteur was born in Dole in 1822 and the house he was born in is now a small museum dedicated to his memory while the street he lived in (at least until he was 5 and the family moved to nearby Arbois) is now named after him. Louis was raised in the poorer quarter of Dole (his father, Jean-Joseph Pasteur, was a tanner there) and yet he grew up to become a biologist, a chemist and the father of microbiology. Most famous for developing the treatment of beer, wine and, later, milk to prevent bacterial contamination (i.e. the process now known as ‘pasteurisation’), he also discovered both the rabies and anthrax vaccines.
The south side of Rue Louis Pasteur, running alongside the Canal du Rhone au Rhin(e), was filled with tanneries; so much so it is named the Canal des Tanneurs. Properties in this part of Dole are now amongst the most sought after and the area has become known as the ‘Little Venice of the Jura’. Again, it is not a large part of the town but it is one of the prettiest…
And the final word of this blog entry must go to food. After all, this is France and the French like to talk about food as much as we British like to talk about the weather.
At the last count, there were three Michelin Restaurants in Dole but we didn’t check even one of them out. That’s not to say however that we were not well fed during our stay in the area. No, our concern while in Jura was not so much with visiting the local restaurants (although we did our bit in that regard, as can be seen from the photos below) but; with sampling Comte Cheese (and we would be heading for La Ferte for that) and; Cremant de Jura (we’d be going to Arbois for that) and Yellow Wine (perhaps to Poligny).
Oh… and the local markets. Opposite the Collegiale Church on Place Nationale is the Marche des Halles. There’s a farmers market held in this covered glass and steel market hall every tuesday, thursday and saturday morning and, during the summer months, there’s an evening market on Fridays.