Dole

Well, it was another weekend in August and, of course, adventure beckoned.

We had decided, long ago, that we would return to Tassenier this weekend to go to the advertised fossil show we had heard about during our last visit.  Consulting my map, I realized that we could easily drive through Dole on the way.  Lots of times, as we travel, we stop in towns simply because, well, I’ve heard of them. I had heard of Dole, it’s close by and so we decided it was a perfect opportunity for a visit.

Turns out that Dole is actually a beautiful little city.  It is also situated along the Doubs and was actually the capital of the Franche-Comté region between 1332 and 1674 when it moved over to our own home town of Besancon.  We wandered through  the  town, finding the birthplace of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur was the son of a tanner, and we got to take a peek at an old fashioned tannery, which was interesting.  He is best known for pasteurization (of course) and the invention of the rabies vaccine.  After that stop we went wandering over to walk along the Rhine-Rhone canal.  The town is gorgeous and the canal is planted with so many beautiful flowers.  I loved looking at the red roofs of the town and the cathedral towering over the river.  Dole has great old medieval architecture and cobbled streets.  I loved this fountain next to the church.

 

We headed up the hill to the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame de Dole.   It was completed in the 1600’s, and as always, we enjoyed wandering around through it.  I loved the paintings on the ceilings and the lovely organ.  The kids were more interested in this giant grate in the floor.   They had been in other catacombs and  wondered what was going on down there.  Zander theorized it was a jail cell, but Callie said that couldn’t be true in a church…. Hmmm…. one of life’s  unsolvable mysteries, I guess. 

 

After the church we looked around for a place to eat and passed a bar called the cave of hell.  It turns out that some soldiers had holed up in their during the time when Louis the 11th had come to conquer the town.  Louis’ forces fought for many days but could not dislodge the tenacious local soldiers –hence this locale is known as la cave d’enfer.  We had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant.  Here you can see Griffin waiting patiently for his food to arrive (steak hache with fries is his usual order) – notice the cars in his glass!   I had the best salad I’ve ever had – bar none.  We wandered back to the car and then headed for the fossil show.  We didn’t find anything very special to buy but I did get a large piece of amethyst for only a few Euros and Zander got a great geode.  We drove a different way (as usual) to head back to our next stop and I made André pull over so I could take a photo of these immense dahlia’s – that is my hand being dwarfed by one of them – plus there was a cow crossing sign – definitely stop worthy! We ended our day with a picnic at the  river.  That’s right, we had to bring Daddie back to check out the  Loue.  We skipped the naked area and went straight to the family section.  It was great fun to play in the water together.  Made it home by around 8pm and had a restful Sunday.  Check Dole off the list!