Dole

Dole is an art and historical city, built on the banks of the doubs river, with a medieval town center around the church and its imposing bell tower.

City tour  The old town.The old town's narrow, winding streets like "Grande Rue" and houses dating from the 15th to 18th Century, with interesting details, wells, arcaded inner courtyards, like the "Hotel Froissard" in "rue Mont Roland" with a double horseshoe staircase.  Place aux Fleurs. At the top of "Grande Rue", this charming little square (Flowers Square) offers a nice view of the city. Its fountain from the 18th century is next to a bronze contemporary sculpture named "Gossips".  Collégiale Notre-Dame. A 16th Century Church, the biggest and tallest in Franche-Comte with its bell tower 75 m (246 ft) tall. Riepp's carved wooden "great organ" dating from the 18th Century is one of the very rare examples of its type in France remaining virtually intact.

Arc et senans  The Royal Saltworks of the 18th Century is an example of Claude Nicholas Ledoux's neoclassical and unique industrial architecture. It has been included in UNESCO's list of the world's historical monuments. Part of the buildings now houses a cultural center, the Foundation Claude Nicolas Ledoux, which organizes a number of events.

Château de salans  The 17th Century castle has been restored in a neo-classical style. Its Directoire-style garden clearly exemplifies the deliberate search for asymmetry. A rose garden of ancient and historic roses has been created.

foret de chaux  Nicknamed "the endless forest", it extends over 49,420 acres from the Loue river in the south to the Doubs river in the north and is one of the most important forest in France (mostly oaks and beeches). In the forest, the only village, "La Vieille Loye", was known for its glass work. Nearby, lies a group of mud and wood huts called "Baraques du 14". They were homes of woodcutters, have been restored and now house a permanent exhibit.

Mont roland  North of Dole, this hill offers the best scenic view point to scan the town and the landscape to the Jura and the Alps mountains. At the summit stands Notre-Dame-du-Mont, a church sheltering a miraculous virgin statute, the site of numerous pillgrimages.

The serre forest  In the north, this forest, though smaller, invites beautiful walks. One path leads to the Ermitage grotto, an unusual two-story grotto, which was probably inhabited in prehistoric times. Has picturesques villages with fountains and wash houses.

the museums  Museum of Fine Arts. It presents a collection of paintings from the 15th to the 19th Century French, Italian, and Scandinavian schools of art; 14th to 16th Century sculptures, contemporary art, Prehistoric Gallo-Roman and Merovingian archaeology, and Egyptology.  Pasteur's House. Along the bank of the canal the birth place of Pasteur has been turned into a museum containing three sections: an intimate interior, a reconstitution of a tannery workshop (his father was a tanner), and a scientific exhibition illustrating the relevance of Pasteur's work to current research.