Tuesday 15th November 2016

We went to Besançon to visit the Citadel in the morning

King Louis XIV wanted to protect the French borders in the 17th century. He gave the military engineer Sébastien Le Pestre de Vauban, the job. He built approximatively 160 strongholds, including the Citadel of Besancon, to surround France in an “iron belt”! As well as being a military engineer, vauban was also a soldier who was involved in around 40 sieges during his career.

It is registered as a UNESCO world heritage site.

We discovered this place was like a real little village with a chapel, a mill, a water tank,it host 2000 soldiers. There was also a school to teach the soldiers, a jail. The soldiers were housed 18 in a room with only 6 beds. The 3 fronts made the Citadelle impregnable and some tunnels allowed the soldiers to flee if they were attacked. The citadel of Besançon was never besieged.

Later in the afternoon, we went to visit the Royal Salt Works of Arc et Senans

The Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senan was built during the 18th century by Claude Nicolas Ledoux at Arc-et-Senan because of the forest of Chaux. There are 11 buildings at the salt works like Western and Eastern salt extraction halls, stables, workers houses, guard room, barrel-making, tax-office and the director’s house. Ledoux wanted to build an ideal city where people could work, live and be happy at the same time. We visited the different museums and answered a questionnaire.

Emma D.