Preview of Swisherd's blog at TravelPod. Read the full blog here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/swisherd/besancon06/1185604140/tpod.html This blog preview was made by TravelPod using the TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow creator. Entry from: Besancon, France Entry Title: "My Second Trip to Besancon, Oct. 2006" Entry: "At the international student residence hall, I was very, very bored. I had no entertainment what so ever: no television, no one to hang out with, and not enough homework or activities to keep me busy, nothing. All I had in the way of entertainment were 3 DVDS that I had purchased at FNAC to watch on my laptop, and a bunch of CDs ( I think I had about 10 cds at this time) all in French, except for Arctic Monkey's first album, which I had brought with me in my personal CD player on accident (though I will admit, after listening to that CD for 9 months straight as my only escape from French I eventually grew to LOVE it) I did have some new friends that I did do things with, but still my life was a bore! So, despite my mother's protest, I began to plan another day trip out of desperation. At first, I was thinking about going somewhere different, either visit a new city in Burgundy or possibly go see a different city other than Besancon in the nearby Franche Comte. But I knew there were a lot of sites in Besancon that I still had not seen, and since on my first trip I was only there for 5 hours, I decided that I would attempt to do Besancon justice and do a second day trip there. As always, I purchased my tickets ahead of time at the local SNCF boutique using my SNCF student discount card. (what was funny was that I had been to that SNCF boutique in Dijon so much that the staff knew me by name, or at least the fact that I was the American foreign exchange student from Florida.) Finally the weekend came and I left early Saturday morning to arrive in Besancon. An hour and a half later the train arrived at my destination and I got off and began to do some sight seeing. I walked from the station into centre ville, using the same streets that I had during my first trip there. I had expected to just walk around centre ville again, try and visit the Museum of Time, the Musee des Beaux Arts and anything else that I didn't get to see during my last visit. Well, I was in for a big yet pleasant surprise. As soon as I entered into centre ville I saw a long line of stands of what appeared to be a flea market. I actually like flea markets; well any type of outdoor market like this so seeing this was a treat for me. I shouldn't have been that surprised to see it though, because after all it was a Saturday, and normally the weekends are market days. But the furthur that I walked through centre ville it became apparent to me that this was more than just a simple, Saturday flea day market. I began to realize that this flea market covered the streets of entire centre ville: rows and rows of tables with locals selling everything from clothes to art to local cheeses and sausages to vegtables to antiques to vendors selling "as seen on TV" type gadgets. It was an amazing site, and it was kinda cool that on all days that I had decided to come to Besancon on this one, on the day that I later found out from one of the locals to be two day long festival where the residences of the city turned the entire city into one gigantic garage sale. I took my time wandering down the streets I encountered, enjoying the different stands and taking in the scene. Even now, looking back, I can remember the disorganized, carnival atmosphere with the messy display on the different table of the merchandise, and of each of the vendors yelling to promote their products and the prices, and the vendors selling the "as seen on TV" type gadgets talking to crowds of people in front of their stands about how this product would better their daily lives. One thing that I noticed different from this market in comparison to the other flea/food markets that I had been to in France at this time was the presence of sausages and hard cheeses. The French do like sausages and you can buy French style sausages in the grocery store, but these sausages were different ..." Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/swisherd/besancon06/1185604140/tpod.html Photos from this trip: 1. "Interesting Church1" 2. "Interesting Church2" 3. "Place de la Revolution" 4. "The Gigantic Flea Market" 5. "Place de la Revolution 2" 6. "The Musee des Beaux Arts" 7. "View of the River" 8. "Another Cathedral" 9. "Along the River" 10. "La Musee de Temps1" 11. "The Musee de Temps2" 12. "The Musee de Temps3" 13. "Outside the Trainstation1" 14. "Outside the Trainstation 2" 15. "Some of the street facing the trainstation" See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00ce-56b4-93bf?ytv4=1

• published: 17 Feb 2011
• views: 389