1. Annegray to Ronchamp

A vast territory that requires several days to discover many secrets.
The topology of this place is the consequence of the retreat of the last ice age (minus 10,000 years). The ponds are the result of cavities left by the glaciers, man will create pockets of water rich in fish to feed in winter. The Irish monks who accompanied Colomban developed fish farming. The presence of natural ponds for such a long time has developed peat. Farmers have been able to exploit all the qualities of peat for heating, insulation and construction.
Calvaries and crosses are still numerous. They bear witness to a significant presence of peasants until the beginning of the 20th century who wanted to pay tribute to an event that took place there. The arrival of agricultural mechanization made some crosses disappear in crossroads where agricultural machinery could not manoeuvre.
The stone crosses exhibited on the site of Annegray Priory were donated by farmers who wanted to move crossroads crosses.
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The church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul de Mélisey dates from the 12th century. Of the Romanesque building, only the choir remains, whose three oriented apses are relatively well preserved. During work on the burials and two carved blocks used in reuse were discovered at the back of the chevet.

The river Ognon, which runs through the town of Mélisey, is mentioned in the life of Saint Colomban. Jonas de Bobbio tells of a conflict between the monk Gall and his master Colomban. The latter had asked Gall to fish for fish in the Breuchin river which passes in front of the monastery of Annegray. Gall disobeyed and went to fish in the Ognon, he didn't catch any fish and had to go back to fish in the Breuchin to bring back an abundant catch.

Tradition tells that the Bourlémont hill was occupied by a pagan temple during antiquity, probably transformed into a Christian place of worship in the early Middle Ages.
The first trace of a Catholic building dates back to the 13th century. It is a place of pilgrimage under the name of Our Lady of the Nativity. The parishioners of Ronchamp and the surrounding area gather on the hill to pray.
In 1737, the relocation of the parish church to a new building in the centre of Ronchamp heralded a decrease in the use of the chapel except for pilgrimages. As in all the countryside, the old places of worship are still frequented like the chapel of the Haut. This attachment of the parishioners manifested itself by the purchase of the chapel after the Revolution, to make it a private property, which is still the case today.
At the beginning of the 20th century, faced with the dilapidated state of the chapel, a consequence of lightning and a fire in 1913, the Archbishop of Besançon proposed to rebuild this place of pilgrimage. The new chapel was damaged during the 1944 bombings of the mining town.
The descendants of the first owners of the chapel joined together in a real estate company to rebuild the building. Consultations with the diocese of Besançon were to succeed and an architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known under the pseudonym Le Corbusier, was hired. He fell under the charm of this hill and its panorama.
Le Corbusier will use the technique of reinforced concrete, not very common at that time for this type of building. The construction began with the roof of the chapel placed on a forest of wooden scaffolding that appealed to the visitors of the time.
The interplay of interior colours, skilfully chosen by the architect, and the roof symbolising the flight of a bird won over the public at the inauguration in 1955.
There is an entrance fee to visit the building.
More Informations Notre-Dame-du-Haut Chapel website

The history of this church, in the centre of the town of Ronchamp, must be told in conjunction with that of the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel on the Bourlémont hill.
An 11th century document attests the presence of a Notre-Dame chapel on the hill, attached to an abbey in Besançon. The Lords of Ronchamp found the place of worship too remote and were authorised by the archbishopric to build a Saint-Hubert chapel in their castle during the 15th century.
A new parish church was built in 1737 to replace the Saint-Hubert chapel.
During the 19th century, major alterations were made to the lower church, which is the building we see today. While the chapel of the upper church is subject to storms and low attendance outside the pilgrimages to Notre-Dame.