The Gratteris viewpoint, from sharp limestone pavement to dolmen

Car park at the foot of Tarcenay Church in the centre of the village. Yellow and blue signposting. Some sections are unmarked.

(S/E) Enter the churchyard to take a look inside through the porch gate. Exit via the upper gate and head down the Route de Trépot to the right for fifty metres. Then head up to the far left along Rue du Stade, which becomes a stony track and branches off as it enters the woods. Continue straight on, passing a beautiful sinkhole on your right. After walking alongside some old, moss-covered walls, you’ll reach a fork in the path. Continue straight on again to leave the woods and reach Foucherans Town Hall.

(1) Turn left, passing the church by about thirty metres. Turn sharp right onto the short little street which becomes a stony track right in the middle of the pastures and leads you to the church at Trèpot with its lovely parish enclosure.

(2) Continue along the path that runs alongside the church’s façade, passing an old standpipe. Immediately turn left downhill to the Cheese Museum at the rear of the town hall. Return to the church (lovely view of the rear and a charming old house).

(2) Leave the village by turning right onto a short stretch of the departmental road towards Tarcenay, passing an old wash house. Continue for a further hundred metres or so.

(3) Turn sharp right onto the stony track which soon enters the woods; look out for the sign ‘De lapiaz en Dolmen’ facing away from the direction of travel. At the entrance to the woodland, you’ll come to the first fork. Carry straight on. Shortly afterwards, at another fork, keep right, then stay on this well-defined and generally straight path. You’ll pass some sharp limestone pavements and numerous sinkholes (on your left), typical of the karst landscape. You’ll rejoin the D112

(4). Head left along it for about a hundred metres and re-enter the woods via the lovely path on the left (signposted ‘Belvédère de la Roche du Gratteris’). You’ll notice more beautiful sinkholes here. You’ll come across an ascending path at a right angle. Take this path to the left towards the nearby viewpoint. A little further up, look out for a track on the right leading to a promontory visible through the trees. View of the Gratteris, whose name derives from the Celtic word ‘kratt’, meaning a stony field where one had to labour hard to eke out a living. Far to the left, the silhouette of Mont Poupet.

(5) Set off again along the path on the right which joins the track; continue straight on until you reach a small tarmac road. Head down to the left for 200 metres and turn right onto a path that leads you to a large sharp limestone pavement slab which one might be tempted to believe is a dolmen.

(6) Continue along the narrow track that starts at the corner of the stone, crossing a strip of pastureland before entering the woods once more. At the fork, keep left to find yourself on the side of a sinkhole and reach the lovely picnic area behind the wash house. Go round the beautifully renovated wash house, built in 1855, on the left.

(7) Cross the zigzagging path to the left of the building. Walk up through the pasture, keeping the chapel in your sights. Climb a wooden ladder to enter a lovely sunken path that winds its way up to the Chapel of Saint-Maximin, where the parishioners of the Middle Ages led a joyful life.

(8) Set off again into the woods along the lovely straight path opposite the entrance (despite the crosses). Walk through a lovely, open forest until you reach a crossroads. Continue straight on until you reach the nearby fork. Take the right-hand path and you’ll come to a wide gravel track.

(9) Turn left, leaving the signposted route behind, and you’ll soon come to a stony path on your right, which you follow down. Leave the woods and arrive at Tarcenay. Turn left onto the Chemin des Sorbiers, then right to join the Route de Besançon and, turning left, head for the car park. (S/E)

(2) Trépot Cheese Museum: a guided tour of the former Trépot Comté cheese-making workshop, topped by its tall chimney.

(3) Karst landscape: a doline is a characteristic form of limestone erosion specific to karst landscapes. The dissolution of surface limestone leads to the formation of circular depressions ranging from a few metres to several hundred metres in diameter. Sharp limestone pavement is a type of surface relief found in limestone regions.

(6) The Foucherans dolmen: this slab, situated in the commune of Foucherans, measuring 3 m in length, 1 m in width and 40 cm in thickness, rests on two parallel slabs, forming a chamber 1.23 m wide and 57 cm high. The St Maximin stone thus displays all the characteristics of a dolmen. However, the lack of archaeological excavations means it cannot be confirmed as an authentic Neolithic dolmen. Experts believe the Jura region is not particularly associated with this type of megalith. Was it a site of pagan worship, or an imposing sharp limestone pavement formed by rainwater runoff dissolving the rock?

(8) The Chapel of Saint-Maximin: in the Middle Ages, this place was so popular that merchants and innkeepers set up shop there; and after a few initial drinks – no doubt raised in honour of the good saint – people would celebrate merrily, dancing right inside the building. The ecclesiastical authorities, who took no pleasure in such boisterous devotions, ordered the chapel to be demolished in 1777. It was rebuilt a century later.