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Bourg-en-Bresse Easily reached by TGV ( high speed train), only two hours from Paris, or by road, forty five minutes from Lyons, Bourg-en Bresse is not just a town whose name is associated with poultry. It offers many other charms that you must take the time to discover…after a good meal. Bourg and its surroundings reveal the vestiges of their contrasted past before your very eyes, a past at once glorious and chaotic. Chaotic because the extremely fertile soil of the region was greatly coveted by the peoples who preceded us. The Gauls settled in Bresse before being hounded out by the Romans, by Germanic tribes, by Burgundians and Franks. It is only at the end of the Hundred Years War that the peasants of the Bresse region were able to enjoy peace. A glorious past too for the different peoples and civilisations engraved their marks on the streets and surroundings of Bourg leaving vestiges and testimonies that are still visible today. Some hundreds of menhirs still slumber in the base of the prison. The timbered houses of the C.15th and C.16th and the Renaissance buildings in stone attest to the vitality of the bourgeoisie of the time. Bourg-en-Bresse also underwent a Savoyard influence since in 1272 the town and the region of Bresse fell under the yoke of the duke Savoy when marriage was contracted between Sybille de Bagé and Amédée V of Savoy. It is only four centuries later, in 1601, that town and region returned to the French fold. During the French Revolution Bourg-en-Bresse became the capital town of the then young administrative region of Ain. From 1700 onwards the town began to take on the character that we know it by today. It continued till 1850. Then, around 1894, it was decided that a new great central artery would be opened up linking the Town Hall to the Préfecture. Industry and agriculture were developed and prospered there till the Second World War. And that is without counting the rich intellectual life that it has harboured: the grammarian, Vaugelas, the astronomer, Jérôme Lalande, the historian, Edgar Quinet, the professor, André Marie Ampère, the writer, Paul Nizan and many others stopped there to reflect for a while or to write their scientific works… Today it is still possible to admire the monastery at Brou and its church, the bastion, all that remains of the fortifications built by the Dukes of Savoy, the old quarter of Bourgmayer, the co-cathedral Notre-Dame patiently erected between 1505 and 1652, the residence of the Baron Marron De Meillonnas built in 1774…Between two visits a good meal is a must. On the menu, chicken à la crème with morels, frogs, quenelles of pike in Nantua sauce and stuffed carp from the Dombes area. Information Tourist Office. Tel: 04 74 22 49 40 www.bourg-en-bresse.org |
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