It was a little showery so we got ourselves together slowly and left Besancon on our way to Dole in the middle of the Jura area.

The road took us through the green fields with the Comte cheese cows along the Doubs River.

In a village we found a nice parking spot beside the river to stop for lunch.

Glenn enjoyed spotting the birds and the fish.

After a relaxing lunch we drove on to the Camping du Pasquier campsite on a green island next to the old Dole centre. The reception closes for lunch so we joined a queue of other campers waiting to get in.

After 15 minutes we were in – and got on to doing our clothes washing.

By 4pm we were on our bikes off into town. The first stop was Louis Pasteur’s birthplace on the Doubs river to get in before it closed. His father was a tanner so needed the river for water and to get rid of his toxic waste. Rivers in the 1800s must have been horrible!

We had been to the Louis Pasteur museum in Arbois where he lived for a lot of his life which is very good so wanted to check this one out.

The first room showed his family tree with many of his siblings and children dying very young from diseases.

Louis was not particularly good at school but was good at art. There is a book of his many art pieces. He was also good friends with many artists.

He got interested in chemistry by being in touch with many practical chemical processes. His father’s tannery, the creation of paint and wine fermentation. He became a teacher and taught chemistry related to painting and architecture. He then branched out from there into other areas of chemistry.

Louis had a stroke at 46 years old and had problems with his left side afterwards. All photos show him from his right side.

There was a room related to the tannery – though most of it was carried out downstairs beside the River.

Here is the old tannery underneath the house.

When Louis died he was first buried in Notre Dame Cathedral with a huge funeral. His body was later transferred to the crypt under the Pasteur Institute in Paris where his wife now lies beside him.

Upstairs gave information on the main discoveries that Pasteur made:

That germs cause diseases and can be in the air.

Fermentation in wine is caused by yeasts in the air. He wrapped a bunch of grapes in cotton wool to prevent the yeast getting to it and proved they could not be turned into wine and remained as grape juice

Pasteurisation by heating to kill any bacteria and stop any fermentation

Hygiene and cleanliness is required to stop germs being passed

Vaccination against diseases – particularly rabies and anthrax

After enjoying all that we walked up the old streets of Dole. Dole was the capital of the medieval County of Burgundy from around the 13th century and later the Franche-Comté until the region was conquered by Louis XIV in the late 17th century and annexed to France. The city was an important commercial center in the 12th century and hosted a university founded in 1422.

Down some steps we found the old fountain – or spring of fresh water that had been known since the 13th century. It helped the city survive during 2 sieges.

We went up the hill to see the huge Notre Dame church that had been built in the 15th century when Dole was the capital. It was very impressive with an organ from the 1700s.

We were quite hungry by this point and found a bakery on the large church square so went to find something to eat. We asked what the local speciality was – and it was the Figue – a green icing cake. So we tried one of these and a tiramisu slice. The Figue was incredibly sweet with a middle of custard with pastry with the green icing on top – very strange. The slice was very pleasant.

There was a specialist cheese shop around the corner so we went to buy some more Comte cheese. There is a special Comte wheel where the server asks the size of slice you want by positioning his large slicer. This one had a few choices of location and age of the cheese. We chose an 18 months old one this time.

We saw more interesting old architecture.

We then collected our bikes and started cycling back to the campsite over the river, seeing more interesting sights on the way.

Back at the campsite we got our washing under the awning as showers were on the way. We had a quiet dinner and then off to bed.