The Fort de Bregille, and Chalezeule (EN)

Last saturday (Feb 19), Tracy and I did some intense hiking. We arrived at the start of the trails around 12:45. On the outskirts of Besançon, there are tons of trails, forests, etc. All the trails are beautiful.

At the start is this obnoxiously long staircase, of course. At the end, there is an intersection of a few roads. To the right is Fort Beauregard, with an amazing view of Besançon. Afterwards, to the left, is a road that turns into a trail which runs through the forest. At the end of the forest...we finally arrived at the Fort de Bregille. It's a huge old fort, with tons of trails all around it.

Fort Beauregard

Fort de Bregille

Then, behind the fort (after lots of scenery that looks like Helm's Deep from LOTR Two Towers), we crossed the "Grand Desert" (that's the French name, even though it's the same in English). Really, it did feel like a desert.

The Grand Desert !

Right after the "desert," there are a lot more trails through the forests behind him. Some of the trails go towards Centre-Ville (of Besançon), et some others go towards tiny towns (like Chalezeule and Boissy D'Anglas).

Now for something actually hilarious and interesting: in these forests, there are work-out stations. No, I'm not kidding. After the second one, we understood the purpose of them, and had a surprisingly really good time with these ridiculous things. I put some of those photos below for example. We walked 3.5 km (2.5 miles or so?) through the forest; at the end, there is a big lookout point with a wonderful views of the Doubs river and an old destroyed castle. Next to this lookout point is Chalezeule, an old and small town. I took a photo of this cool lookin' church there.

To Chalezeule !

The views of the Doubs River

Information (assuming you can read French...)

That old destroyed castle

Moi

The church in Chalezeule

So, that's about it. We returned to our dorms around 17:00 (5 pm). The weather and the views were ridiculously good. I went back yesterday (Monday) and took some of the other trails. I was there for about 7 hours yesterday! For now, that's it! Enjoy the photos.

- Matt Lipinski