Pontarlier

The capital of Haut-Doubs in the region Franche-Comté is Pontarlier. It has two main assets: the absinthdistilleries and a car museum of 8000 m². Until 1915, Pontarlier was the capital of absinth, a bitter green liquor based on the plant Artemisia absinthium. The liquor contains about 75 % alcohol. It was very much the favorite drink of 'creative people'. It is known that Vincent Van Gogh, Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway were big users of this liquor. It became forbidden when the Swiss Jean Lanfray killed his whole family after consuming too much wine and absinth. It was assumed that the toxic thujon within absinth was the major cause of the murder. Now you can get absinth again but the toxic thujon has been removed.

The Musée Sbarro is named after Franco Sbarro, an Italian car constructor and designer who worked in his Ateliers de Construction Automobile (ACA) in the Swisse Grandson, nearby the lake of Neuchatel.

Lannoo