Circuit de Neufchâteau

Il offre un superbe panorama sur Neufchâteau et son secteur sauvegardé. Vous pouvez voir l'église Saint-Nicolas qui date en partie de la fin du XIIe siècle avec la particularité de reposer sur une église basse. Par ailleurs on y distingue des constructions plus récentes et la vieille ville avec sa place Jeanne d'Arc et ses beaux hôtels du XVIIe et XVIIIe. Neufchâteau est une ville riche d'histoire, construite sur un promontoire que contourne la rivière Mouzon elle bénéficiait d'une position défensive naturelle et d'un abri contre les inondations.

There are in France 265 national necropoli: among the 90 located in Lorraine, including 10 in the Vosges department, the one in Neufchâteau was classified as a “definitive national cemetery” on the 6th of August 1920. Located next to the cemetery in rue de la Paix, it contains 1008 graves of soldiers who died during the two world conflicts of the 20th century. Most of the graves here are of soldiers from the Great War: 956, including 833 French, 120 Germans, one Russian and two Poles. The memory of 1939-1945 is perpetuated by the presence of 52 graves: 47 French and 5 British. The history of the necropolis began in 1914 when the strategic position and the hospital role of the town made the creation of a military cemetery essential, leading to the acquisition of the Tourneval property: it is there that, according to the law of 19 December 1915, "any soldier who died for France has the right to a perpetual burial at the expense of the State". This place of remembrance has been constantly enlarged; today, in the middle of the aisles of sober and similar graves, the visitor discovers many details about the buried soldiers.

This protected resurgence of the Meuse is situated 400 metres from the centre of Neufchateau in the district of Rouceux. Walk along the drinking trough and admire the former wash house and the rich and varied fauna and flora surrounding it : willows, wild brown trouts, many birds, toads, green whip snakes. This place is highly preserved since 1997 by the APPB (Biotope protection prefectoral order). The rich geologic sediment valley of the Meuse is a large alluvial plain where fluctuating water levels contribute to the appearance of a long grass vegetation and its specific animal species.