Port-Lesney / Poligny

This stage leads you into the Jura wine-producing area. Once past Mouchard, a small town known for its wood-working school run by highly skilled specialists awarded the status of compagnons du devoir, you cross the wine villages of Aiglepierre and Montigny-les-Arsures before reaching Arbois, a little town known as the capital of Jura wines. It lies at the heart of the Pays d'Art et d'Histoire du Revermont area, also including the historic little towns of Arbois and Salins-les-Bains. Do make time to taste the Vins du Jura* as well as exploring Arbois’s rich heritage, notably its iconic 12th-century St Just Church and the family home of famed 19th-century French scientist, Louis Pasteur, a place where he liked to come to relax, although today the house has been transformed into a museum.

The Route

From Arbois, ride on to Poligny, known as capital of Comté (French people’s favourite cheese), following quiet little roads and crossing many typical little villages. At Poligny, do visit the Maison du Comté, dedicated to the cheese, enjoying a tasting of this star Jura product. You can see how Poligny used to be a fortified settlement, the Château de Grimont notably offering its inhabitants protection. The town became home to numerous religious establishments down the centuries and these have left their mark on the urban landscape. All these facets explain why Poligny has come to be seen as one of the region’s cultural gems.

Link by bike la Voie des Salines

At Aiglepierre, leave behind the Tour du Jura Vélo Loisirs cycle route, staying on the Voie des Salines cycle route taking you through the village of Marnoz before reaching the small historic town of Salins-les-Bains (count c.8km each way). To return to the trail of the Tour du Jura Vélo Loisirs, simply retrace your cycling tracks!

Link Aiglepierre > Salins-Les-Bains (16km return trip – elevation 215 m D+)

What about completing your exploration of the Jura salt route and its salt history? That’s what’s we propose with this cycling detour to the thermal spa resort of Salins-les-Bains, which conceals at its heart the Grande Saline, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its salt museum retraces the history of salt mining here, from extracting the brine deep down in the earth thanks to a special well set up in a vast vaulted underground chamber below the town, to the painstaking extraction of the salt carried out by skilled craftsmen known as saulniers. The two famed saltworks, at Arc-et-Senans and Salins-les-Bains, were, in times past, connected by a special, long ‘‘saltoduct’’, a pipe made from spruce. Salins-les-Bains has been awarded Petite Cité de Caractère status for its historic riches, and the place remains a natural thermal spa resort, so why not make the most of a quick well-being pause here before getting back on the cycle route? 

Practical information 

• Wide range of services available at Mouchard, Arbois and Poligny
• Train stations at Mouchard, Arbois and Poligny
• Further accommodation at Mouchard, Montigny-les-Arsures, Arbois, Pupillin and Poligny

Don't miss

• Arbois: a town known as Capitale des Vins du Jura (Jura wines), Musée de la Vigne et du Vin, a wine museum, Maison et laboratoire de Louis Pasteur, Saint Just Church, Musée d’Art Hôtel Sarret de Grozon, Wine tastings of the varied Vins du Jura
• Poligny: known as Capitale du Comté (the region’s famed cheese), Collégiale Saint-Hippolyte de Poligny, Apothicairerie de Poligny (an historic apothecary), Maison du Comté in Poligny
• Mouthier-le-Vieillard: Romanesque church