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Besançon (UK: / ˈ b ɛ z ən s ɒ n /, US: / b ə ˈ z æ n s ən /, French: [bəzɑ̃sɔ̃] ⓘ, Franco-Provençal: [bəzɑ̃ˈsɔ̃]; archaic German: Bisanz; Latin: Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the ...
On this page. Location and access. Tourist attractions. In the area. Local accommodation. Cradled in a loop of the river Doubs, at the foot of its towering citadel, the ancient city of Besançon is one of the best preserved historic cities in France. In pre-Roman times, it was the capital of an area known as Sequania.
Besançon, city, capital of Doubs département, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté région, eastern France. It lies astride a horseshoe meander of the Doubs River, 45 miles (75 km) east of Dijon. It early became the chief town (Vesontio) of the Sequani Gauls and in 58 bce was taken by Julius Caesar.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Citadel
- Musée Des Beaux-Arts et D’Archéologie
- Musée de La Résistance et de La Déportation
- Musée Du Temps
- Besançon Cathedral
- Astronomical Clock
- Quai Vauban
- Battant Quarter
- Porte Noire
- Victor Hugo’s Birthplace
The UNESCO-listed citadel is arguably Vauban’s crowning glory. The military mastermind conceived this 11-hectare fortified complex in the 1660s, and it adapts to the mammoth promontory at the neck of the loop in the Doube River. The project was as innovative as it was costly, and Louis XIV wondered in jest whether the walls had been built with gold...
In 1694 the abbot and scholar Jean-Baptiste Boisot left his hoard of manuscripts, busts, medals, paintings and books to the Benedictine monks of Saint-Vincent, providing it was made available to the public two days a week. And so was born the oldest museum in France. Further donations since then have swelled the collections, which are divided into ...
Besançon’s museum about the resistance and the concentration camps packs an emotional punch. The museum’s home is the cadet building in the Citadel, and this setting isn’t coincidental as some 100 resistance members were shot here in the war. Across 20 rooms there are documents, photographs and written accounts of ambushes and acts of sabotage, as ...
In the late-18th century Swiss craftsmen poured into Besançon, turning it into one of Europe’s capitals for watchmaking. That legacy is evident today in the city’s nanotechnology industries, for which Besançon is a world leader. The Musée du Temps documents the ancient quest to measure time, and is crammed with sundials, hourglasses, antique watche...
With many renovations and rebuilds down the centuries, the cathedral is an arresting jumble of styles, from Romanesque to Baroque. Something that sets it apart from most churches is its two choirs, a choir and counter-choir. This is something you normally only see in Rhenish architecture. If you have time there’s a lot to see in the interior, like ...
In the 1850s the cathedral commissioned master clockmaker, Auguste-Lucien Vérité to build an astronomical clock to replace a defective one made a few years earlier. Because of the scale, workmanship and complexity of this instrument many people come to the cathedral just to see the clock. It stands almost six metres tall and is made up of 30,000 me...
The Doubs riverside around the Pont Battant is absolutely gorgeous. The arcaded docks here are named after the military engineer responsible for the citadel, but they don’t really have much to do with him. They were conceived in the early 1690s by the architect Isaac Robelin and may even have been built against Vauban’s advice. Whatever the origin ...
On the right bank of the Doubs, north of the Boucle is the Battant Quarter, which has more than 30 hectares of protected stone-built streetscapes to idle around for a few hours. The reason for all this history is that for centuries the Pont Battant was the only river crossing, so a kind of suburb formed around the bridge and then up the slopes that...
As it twists down from the cathedral, Rue de la Convention passes under a triumphal Roman arch that has been here since the 170s. After 1,800 years of erosion the arch’s many carvings have been rendered rather faint. That’s down to the material they were made with, as the Vergenne limestone used for the arch is known for being very workable but is ...
A few steps down from the cathedral and the Porte Noire is the apartment where the great author and humanist Victor Hugo was born in 1802. Hugo’s military father was stationed in Besançon for just a few months before he was transferred to Marseille and took his family with him. The apartment became a museum in 2013, while the Jacques de Besançon ph...
- Citadelle de Besançon. Dominating the city from Mt St-Etienne, more than 100 vertical metres above the old town, the 17th-century Citadelle de Besançon – designed by Vauban for…
- Musée du Temps. Literal and figurative interpretations of time are woven together at the Musée du Temps, which places allegorical paintings about the passage of time next…
- Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie. France's oldest public museum, founded in 1694, is famous for its stellar collection of local Gallo-Roman archaeology; its Cabinet des Dessins, with some…
- Horloge Astronomique. The base of 18th-century Cathédrale St-Jean's bell tower houses an incredible astronomical clock, powered by 11 weights, that has run the church's bells…
Besançon (/ b ə z ɑ̃ s ɔ̃ / [n 1]) est une commune de l'Est de la France, préfecture du département du Doubs et siège du conseil régional de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Située en bordure du massif du Jura à moins d'une soixantaine de kilomètres de la Suisse , elle est entourée de collines et traversée par le Doubs .
Visit Besancon (Burgundy-Franche-Comté, France) Book hotels, flights, car hire. The town of Besançon is situated in the Doubs department, in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Wrapped in a loop of the River Doubs, Besançon is surrounded by attractive forested countryside and low lying mountains. Besancon is also a university town ...
