Besançon

Last weekend was a long weekend in France. In fact most of the weekends in May are long weekends it seems. May 8 is Victory in Europe Day and May 21 is Ascension Day. That's a Thursday so it becomes a pont (bridge) weekend. In other words they make a bridge from the Thursday to the weekend so the Friday becomes a holiday too. Makes sense to me! And the last Monday in May is a holiday too, for Pentecost. I have feeling that May 1 might have been a holiday as well but I was in London so I don't know. So, as I was saying..... I finished my exams on Wednesday at lunchtime and as I didn't have school on Thursday I got the train to Besançon on Wednesday afternoon to make the most of the long weekend. Had I mentioned the exams, by the way? I made a real mess of the oral. I was even more tongue-tied and stumbling than usual. It was awful. But I digress. I had to go to Gare de Montparnasse in Paris then get the #91 bus to the Gare de Lyon and then get the train to Besançon. All fairly straightforward these days thank goodness. Besançon has a population of about 110,000 and is in the east of France in the Franche Compte region. And Victor Hugo was born there!
It wasn't a city I knew much about before coming to France. It's worth googling it if you want to know a bit more. Tiffany is there for a year and her husband Nev and their two little girls have come over too. They are from Alexandra, by the way. So anyway, Tiffany met me at the station and took me back to their place. They have an apartment attached to the primary school where Tiffany works for some of the time, and where the girls go. Unfortunately, the Maternelle (pre-school) is in the storey directly above them, so from about 7.00am there is a constant scraping of chairs and general noise. I wouldn't want to be at home with a headache!

On Thursday Tiffany and I went into Centre Ville. We had decided to go on a river cruise. J'aime beaucoup river cruises. The people told us that they were just waiting for another group. No worries, we thought, picturing a mini-van from the rest home pulling up. We took our seats and waited. All very peaceful…then……we heard screaming kids!! The group comprised about 70 primary school children who quickly clambered on board and were very excited. Oh YAY!!!! The operators struggled to get the speaker to go correctly without screeches and static but finally it was sorted.
The ride was very noisy, in particular as we went under bridges when the children would yell non-stop until they had passed through. Then we made it to the lock which was at the beginning of a 185m long tunnel under the Citadelle – oh joy!!! Instead of screaming the whole way – it was just at every runner, blader and cyclist who went past.
We even went past Nev on his run around the river so we could actually wave to someone we knew, but we weren't quite up to yelling like the kids!









Certainly some of the vistas were quite beautiful. It is indeed a beautiful city, although when we went to the outer suburbs it was naturally enough a bit of a different story. But that was just part of the character.
We made it through to the other side of the hill when the boat turned around and headed back to the lock!! What? Not even up the river for a bit? Very pointless exercise except for watching the magical marvels of how a lock system operates. And it is a bit of a marvel. I don't think I have ever done the lock thing before and I was fascinated.
We should have expressed our disappointment with the tour but unfortunately I am a coward and don't like confrontation and also my French isn't really up to it. Because apparently the boat IS supposed to go up the river once through the lock. We think we probably had a shorter specialised tour because of the kids, but maybe they should have told us! It was still full price! We also probably wouldn’t have gone if they had told us it was a school group. They were basically nice kids, but it just wasn't how we had imagined it!
Anyway, we met Nev in town for lunch afterwards and sat in the sun in Place 8 septembre. At 2:00pm Tiffany and I decided to do the Petit Train. Big Mistake Again!!!! It was a 50 minute tour but we spent 25 minutes of that at 2 stops with nothing really to look at. Although I did get this nice photo of a view.
The commentary didn’t start at first and then when it did was out of synch, and after one of the stops it just repeated itself! Thumbs down! It just didn't go anywhere really. The Musee des Beaux Arts was next on the agenda then home for tea. Nev has taken on the House Husband role with great enthusiasm and much success. He is a bit of a gem really. So tea and the dishes were all taken care of!
On Friday we spent the day at the Citadelle which is a large fortification, the symbol of Besançon, which is positioned high up on a hill. There are lots of different museums and attractions there. Tiffany, Seph and Hermione went to the Zoo and Nev and I spent about 3 hours in the Musee de Resistance et Deportation. It was possibly one of the most moving war exhibitions I have ever seen. It was very well set-up and covered pretty much all of the war in Europe, with of course lots of authentic letters, clothing, photos, original documents etc. It traces Nazism from its very beginnings, the course of the war (WWII), the Vichy regime in France - interesting!! - and the resistance movement in France in particular and in Europe. There is a lot of information on deportation and "The Final Solution". There were 20 different rooms, so there was a lot to see. Fortunately there weren't many other people around as you needed time to look and you needed space - space to see everything and space to take it all in. It was quite harrowing in parts, needless to say. Man's great inhumanity to man. Unbelievable.
After that we had a bite to eat and looked at a few other exhibits. I rather liked the Insectarium and I also saw some more French frogs. We then walked round the ramparts and as long as I didn't look straight down I was fine. How on earth did they build it?!! Fabulous views from up there.


In the end we spent the whole day there and arrived home about 6:00pm.
On Saturday morning Tiffany, Seph and I went to see the Historical Astronomical Clock – it has over 1500 working pieces. Quite a giant thing really which can tell you the tides, the astronomical sign and where the planets are, the time in over 10 countries, the day, date, year, and leap century ( this only moves once every 400 years; the last time was in 2000!) when to take your cake out of the oven and other things. Well, perhaps not the cake. But you never know - that could have been what the man was saying!
It didn’t have a lovely chime - in fact it didn't chime at all, but it did have moving figurines! I'm not sure which is more impressive - that clock or the Glockenspiel in Stratford NZ! :-) It was lovely, but the talk was in French of course and so we missed out on some info which might have helped. I was intrigued by a woman who kept asking questions and from what I could gather she hadn't known before that it was a different time in different parts of the world. Hard to believe, but I'm pretty sure that's what she was asking about!
We popped into the church next door - the Eglise St Jean. It was beautiful, as they usually are. I lit a candle for John and Sophie - it's the tall one just beside me. I do sometimes light candles in churches and cathedrals. It feels like quite a calm and nice thing to do, and the money usually goes to maintaining the church.
Next we met Nev and Hermione and went off to Chateaufarine on the bus for a bit of a look at the shops. It's either the name of the mall, or the suburb, or both, and it's a long way out. First we had lunch at Buffalo Grill, which unfortunately was another disappointment – we waited far too long for what was expensive and ordinary! Lol! It was good to wander round the shops but I didn't buy anything. :-)
That night Nev and I watched some football on TV - Guingamp playing Rennes in a Cup Final of some sort. And the underdogs, Guingamp won. Very exciting. Oh, look what I just found!
"Ligue 2 side Guingamp upset Rennes in French Cup final
By Clement Guillou
PARIS, May 9 (Reuters) - Ligue 2 side Guingamp stunned Brittany neighbours Stade Rennes to lift the French Cup with a 2-1 victory in Saturday's final at the Stade de France.
Eduardo struck both goals for Guingamp, netting the winner eight minutes from time after he had cancelled out Carlos Bocanegra's second-half opener for the Ligue 1 side.
Le Havre, in 1959, are the only other second division team to have won the French Cup.
Guingamp, struggling in the bottom half of the second division, will go on to play in next season's Europa League, the revamped UEFA Cup." There!
I really enjoyed catching up with Tiff and her family and just hanging out and chatting, as well as doing the more touristy stuff. The weather was great and all in all I had a super time. I left pretty early on Sunday morning, did the station change in the opposite direction in Paris again, and then got back to Poitiers about lunchtime. That all went very smoothly. And here I am again. I have school this afternoon till 6.00pm, and I need to do some supermarket shopping this morning. That's if I plan to eat at all. And frankly, it would do me no harm if I didn't. But I suppose I will give in. :-)
These last little pictures I got off the net and I don't think they will enlarge, but they might help you get a general idea of where Besancon is and what it looks like.