10 June 2023
We’re travelling to Italy for a month in our own car, which means a cross-channel crossing by Eurotunnel and then a long, long drive through the flat parts of France before we finally hit the Alps. Such a boring drive.
So we ended the day in Besancon, a small medieval city that was once at the heart of the ancient Duchy of Burgundy. It’s a charming place, nestled under the wooded hills in a loop of the river. It feels almost as designed as Bath, with every building made from the same local stone that comes in two colours of sandy buff and dusty blue, and to roughly the same grand style. There are some Roman ruins in a shady little grove while above the town towers the immense Vauban-designed fortress from the 17th century.
Only stopping the night, we didn’t have time for the fortress, but an hour wandering the old town was lovely and gave us an appetite. We ended up at a little restaurant that turned out to be vegetarian, but then surprised us by serving pretty good food and rather decent natural wines.
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