Hotels in Belfort, France

A little about Belfort...

Belfort is a town and commune of northeastern France, préfecture (capital) of the Territoire de Belfort département in the Franche-Comté région. Population (1999): 50,417. Approximately 80,000 including suburbs.

It is located on the Savoureuse, on the strategically important natural route between the Rhine and the Rhône - the Belfort Gap (Trouée de Belfort) or Burgundian Gate (Porte de Bourgogne).

Belfort is a trading centre for wine and grain and its industries include chemicals, engineering, plastics and textiles. Belfort is also the hometown of Alstom where the first TGVs (Trains Grande Vitesse) were produced. As well as GE Energy Gas turbine division.

Sights:
Belfort is the home of the Lion of Belfort, a sculpture by Frédéric Bartholdi expressing people's resistance against the siege in the Franco-Prussian War (1870) — who shortly afterwards built the Statue of Liberty in New York.
The Belfort Cathedral, 18th century
There are also plenty of other things to see in a city that is trying and showing better its heritage, mainly the citadel, the old town and its museographic riches:
In 2007, the Belfort city museums are to be completely restructured within three main poles: history (from archeology to military) in the old barracks on the top of the citadel, arts (mainly from 16th to 19th century) in the Tour 41 and modern arts in the Donation Jardot.
Since July of the same year, a new touristic sight of the citadel has been opened to the public - with a sound-, video- and light-animated trail in the ditches and the big underpass of the citadel. Its name: "La Citadelle de la Liberté" (Citadel of Liberty)

Belfort is also well known for organizing a large-scale music festival in May each year. The Festival International de Musique Universitaire (FIMU) is home to nearly 2500 musicians, most of them students, from many different countries. The musicians give more than 250 concerts in the course of the 3-day festival in a wide variety of styles (classical, jazz, traditional, experimental, etc.). All of the concerts are free of charge and are performed at 14 different locations in the old city (the vieille ville) of Belfort. In 2004 more than 60,000 people attended the festival. In 2005 the festival was held on 14–16th May.