Find your perfect holiday home - over 250,000 homes worldwide to chose from

Calculate how much you can earn - rent out your holiday home here

Find your perfect villa rental with Villas4You over 500 villas across 20 destinations

The best villa holidays from James Villas with our hand-picked villas and all the support you need in resort, we're the number one choice


France: Franche-Comté

Overview

Franche-Comté (population 1.12 million), meaning literally ‘free country’, contains the departments of Doubs (25), Jura (39), Haute-Saône (70) and the Territoire-de-Belfort (90). It’s a little-known region in eastern France bordering Switzerland, with which it shares much of its architecture, cuisine and culture. It’s known for cheeses such as Comté and Morbier, Jura wines, and Morteau and Montbéliard sausages. Franche-Comté is acclaimed for its beautiful, unspoiled scenery (more Swiss in appearance than French) and recalls a fairy-tale land where time has almost stood still. It’s reputed to be the greenest region in France.

Sandwiched between the Vosges range to the north and the Jura mountains to the south, Franche-Comté boasts a landscape of rolling cultivated fields, dense pine forests and rampart-like mountains. Although not as majestic as the Alps, the Jura mountains are more accessible and are a Mecca for nature lovers and winter sports fans. The Doubs and Loue valleys (noted for their timbered houses perched on stilts in the river) and the high valley of Ain are popular areas. The region’s main towns include Belfort and Besançon (25), the regional capital on the river Doubs.

Franche-Comté is largely ignored by foreign tourists and homebuyers, although it has many attractions. Property prices are higher than the French average, although bargains can be found, particularly if you’re seeking a winter holiday home. Besançon is served by the A36 motorway and has good connections with the centre and south of France, Germany and Switzerland via TGV.

© Survival Books Limited 2005

“Buying a Home in France 2006” 6th Edition, David Hampshire.

Reproduced with the permission of Survival Books Limited.

Further information on this topic can be found in “Buying a Home in France 2006” 6th edition, by David Hampshire.

For extensive, annually updated information about buying a property in France, you can purchase this book at www.survivalbooks.net


More pages

Page 1: Overview

Discounted Airport Parking - available across the UK

www.holidaylettings.co.uk online advertising for home owners abroad

Reserve your overseas currency online - for a high street beating rate!

Book now, pay when you stay - 100's of hotel rooms worldwide with laterooms.com


Browse our articles written by leading industry experts:

Overseas Property Buying Guides

UK Property Guides

Gardens and Interiors

Cosmetic Surgery Fact Sheets

Looking Good Guides

Money

Business

Community

Travel