EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

Before you take to the hills, there is one day-trip from Belfort worth undertaking - to the mining town of RONCHAMP , 20km west (connected by train and bus), where the architect Le Corbusier built one of his most enduring and atypical masterpieces in the 1950s, the Chapelle de Notre-Dame-du-Haut (daily except Tues: April-Sept 9.30am-6.30pm; Oct-March 10am-4pm; 10F/¬1.52). It stands, all in concrete, above the town on the top of a wooded hill, white and reflective, visible from miles away, with its aerodynamic tower and wave-curved roof cutting into the sky beyond. Inside, the rough-textured walls are pierced with unequal embrasures, several closed by patterns of primary glass, whose reds, blues and yellows stain the dipping floor. Simplicity itself, with pared-down crucifix and steel altar rail, it's highly atmospheric.

The tourist office is on place 14-Juillet (July & Aug Mon-Fri 9am-noon & 2-6pm, Sat 9am-noon & 2-4pm; Sept-June Mon 2-5pm, Tues-Fri 9am-noon & 2-5pm, Sat 9am-noon; tel 03.84.63.50.82). If it's getting late and you're worried about a place to stay , try La Pomme d'Or , 34 rue le Corbusier, alongside the train line (tel 03.84.20.62.12, fax 03.84.63.59.45; under 160F/¬24; restaurant from 55F/¬8.38). Hostellers can take another twenty-minute train ride west to VESOUL , where the HI hostel is by the Lac de Vaivre-Vesoul (tel 03.84.76.48.55; bus #1 to stop "Peugeot"), but check the train timetables: there are not many trains to or from either Belfort or Vesoul.