The Château du Joux, 2004

Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2003-2004

wonderful wintry fun in the country the neo-cons have so far overlooked

France voisine, and the Château du Joux

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

The source of the Doubs

It's Kristin, in search of the source of the mighty Doubs river, 21 April 2004

And there it is. The Doubs emerges from god-knows-where underground near the French village of Mouthe, then flows 450 kilometres northeast along the Swiss/French border, northwest, north, and southwest to join the Saône just south of Dijon.

The infant Doubs flowing down into Mouthe, a small commune (pop. <1000) in the Franche Comté region just across the Swiss border from the Vallée du Joux.

A commune evidently distinguished by having recorded the lowest temperature ever in France (-41°C).

We drive onward, in the direction of Pontarlier, and there is the Château du Joux.

We've visited the Château du Joux fairly frequently over the years, and more background information can be found here.

It's time to drive up the winding little road and see if we can get in.

Kristin (left) charging towards the main gates. The castle was then in the middle of an EU-funded programme of renovation, and indeed, to the medieval portions, we could not get in after all.

It remained for our next journey hither, in 2007, to get to see the lurid sights of Lady Berthe's death cell and the final unresting place of Haiti's Toussaint Louverture.

It doesn't look like they're going to let us any closer than this.

The French tricolor

We've been rebuffed and we know when we're not welcome, but oddly enough, we came back two days later to have another go at it.

It appears that they may let us see some of it, at any rate.

The castle in the fog

Including the famous well

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