MuséoParc Alésia, le champ de bataille de 52 av. J.-C.

Alise-Sainte-Reine

Caesar tells of the siege in Book VII of his Commentaries: eighty thousand Gauls shut up in the oppidum, two lines of fortifications — eleven miles facing the town, fourteen facing outwards — twenty-three forts, ditches, stakes and caltrops, a relief army of two hundred and forty thousand men broken in three assaults, and Vercingetorix coming to lay down his arms. Where? The Middle Ages said Alise; people from the Franche-Comté, from 1855, said Alaise, and then, after 1962, Chaux-des-Crotenay, in the Jura. Napoleon III had the plain of Les Laumes excavated from 1861 to 1865 and found the ditches; he commissioned from Aimé Millet the copper statue of Vercingetorix, raised in 1865 at the tip of Mont Auxois on a seven-metre plinth designed by Viollet-le-Duc, and whose face, it is said, is his own. The Franco-German excavations of 1991 to 1997, directed by Michel Reddé and Siegmar von Schnurbein, confirmed the lines traced under the Second Empire, found the camps and the weapons, down to sling bullets bearing the name of Labienus, Caesar's lieutenant: for the archaeologists, the question is settled. The interpretation centre, opened in 2012 in a wooden cylinder designed by Bernard Tschumi, presents more than six hundred objects and a full-scale reconstruction of a hundred metres of Caesar's lines; on the plateau, the Gallo-Roman town that succeeded the oppidum has yielded its forum, its theatre, its basilica and the sanctuary of Ucuetis, the god of the bronze-workers.

Wikipédia — MuséoParc Alésia ↗

Getting there : At Alise-Sainte-Reine, by the D 905 from Montbard or Venarey-les-Laumes; the interpretation centre is at 1, route des Trois-Ormeaux, with a large car park. Paid entry, open from February to November according to a variable calendar; the remains on the plateau are open only from April to early November. The ticket gives access to the centre, to the reconstructed fortifications in the open air and to the remains of the Gallo-Roman town, on the plateau, which you reach by car or on foot; the statue of Vercingetorix, at the western tip of Mont Auxois, can be reached freely. Allow half a day.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

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