An extraordinary clock built between 1858 and 1860, in the cathedral of Saint-Jean, with over 30,000 parts and 57 dials showing the time around the world, the tides, the seasons and the movement of the planets. Automata come to life on the hour.
Besançon was the capital of French watchmaking. Its citadel by Vauban, on a hill in a loop of the River Doubs, is also worth a visit.
A village and its old abbey at the bottom of a deep limestone valley, a 'reculée' typical of the Jura, closed off by cliffs over 200 metres high.
A series of 31 waterfalls on the Hérisson river in the Jura mountains, among them the Éventail, which fans out over 65 metres of rock, and the Grand …
A rounded summit of the southern Vosges mountains, 1,247 metres high, where Alsace, Lorraine and Franche-Comté meet.
A charity hospital founded in 1443, with a dazzling roof of coloured glazed tiles in geometric patterns over its courtyard.
The country house where Voltaire spent his last 20 years, a short way from the Swiss border so that he could flee if he got into trouble.
A moated château in the Burgundy countryside where the witty courtier Roger de Bussy-Rabutin was exiled by Louis XIV after writing a scandalous book …
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