Pontarlier
Travel Guide > Europe > France > Franche-Comté > Pontarlier
In this Article
- Introduction
- Neighbourhoods
- Sights and Activities
- Events and Festivals
- Weather
- Getting There
- Getting Around
- Eat
- Drink
- Sleep
- Work
- Learn
- Keep Connected
Join the Hipporoller Challenge
Help the Travel Guide reach 20,000,000 characters and we'll donate 63 hipporollers worth over $6000. Read more.
On Travellerspoint
Contributors
Utrecht (65%)
from http://utrecht.travellerspoint.com
arif_kool (30%)
as well as lil_lil (4%)
Help contribute to this article to share the ad revenue.
Introduction
Pontarlier is located near the border with Switzerland, at the foot of the Jura mountains and is known to be the second highest town of France with an average elevation of over 1000 metres. Its is a commune of the Doubs Department in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France and has well over 20,000 inhabitants.
Pontarlier acts as a convenient base for various outdoor activites, with access to numerous high quality ski-runs. Just 18 kms from the city lies the beautiful resort at the foot of the Mont d'Or mountain (1463 meters), which offers many summer and winter activities. The town is also famous for its production of absinthe, although this came to an end almost 100 years ago, making place for pastis.
For more information about the city and its surroundings, have a look at the official Pontarlier tourist website.
Neighbourhoods
Sights and Activities
- Porte St Pierre is an 'Arch de Triomphe' erected to celebrate the rebuilding of the town and to commemorate the French conquest of Franche-Comte region in 1678.
- Eglise St Benigne is a 15th century church housing many valuable sculptures.
- Musee Municipal is a 16th century traditional house converted to a museum showcasing the articles related to the local history of the region.
- Ancienne Chapelle des Annonciades is a formerly chappel converted to an exhibition centre
- Espera Museum is an exhibition centre of stylish cars and its prototypes created by the automobile stylist Franco Sbarro.
Events and Festivals
Pontarlier was a pioneer town regarding aviation and the Local Aviation Club usually has some events throughout the year.
Weather
Summers last from June to September with generally temperatures close to 25 degrees Celcius at the lower parts. Nights can be chilly though and thunderstorms occassionally strike the mountainous area. Winters last from December to March with snow and frost at night, but mostly above zero during the day at the lower areas. The higher slopes are perfect for skiing though.
Getting There
By Plane
The closest airports with a significant number of flights throughout Europe are the Euro Airport near Basel and the Geneva Airport.
The Euro Airport Mulhouse/Freiburg/Basel has most flights with many lowcostairlines serving the area, including flights to Turkey, other southern Europe destinations as well as many cities throughout the west and central parts of the continent.
The Geneva Cointrin Airport has more flights, including lots of flights to places outside Europe. It also has many flights with lowcostairlines like Easyjet.
By Train
The TGV Train is available from Paris CDG Airport to Pontarlier via Besancon and there are trains from Geneva or Zurich to Pontarlier as well, sometimes with a switch of trains.
By Car
Pontarlier is located between the A36 highway in France (near Besancon is the access route) and the highways number 1 and number 9 in Switzerland, leading towards Lausanne and Geneva.
By Bus
By Boat
Eat
Drink
Work
Learn
This is version 5. Last edited at 15:19 on Dec 6, 09 by lil_lil (+14). 2 articles link to this page.
Except where otherwise noted, content of this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License