The old town is contained within a loop of the River Doubs, as you can see from the photo below, and towering above it in the following shots are the forbidding, impregnable walls of the Citadel. Over its lifetime this massive fort has been put to many uses: a barracks, a military school, and even a prison.
These days it houses three museums and, somewhat oddly, a zoo. I can remember standing at the top of those vertigo-inducing walls, looking down at the river so far below me. I never dreamt that one day I would own a boat, let alone find myself gazing up at those same walls from the water. The town feels like a safe place despite the rumours we heard of vandalism and stone-throwing at boats. There was certainly no sign of that when we were here.
However during daylight hours, and particularly on Sunday when the town shops were mostly shut, we did notice the street beggars. We were accosted by one charming woman near the railway station, obviously working her patch as I watched her approach other people after us. We gave her a few coins, but there were so many of them around the town that it began to feel a bit overwhelming.
There were plenty of tourists to be seen but surprisingly few pleasure boaters like ourselves and even fewer hire boats. The majority of the boats in the port had obviously not moved in many years and were in varying states of falling apart. Three of them were inhabited, each with a single man aboard, all of whom very kindly came to take our ropes as we moored up and then disappeared back inside their boats.
The feeling of being in a forgotten, rather neglected place was heightened by the adjacent ruin of what must at some time have been a sizeable factory. The roof had long gone, and through the broken glass of countless windows we could see rotting timbers inside. We spent one night here and decided it was as good a place as any to turn around and head back.
