The Vosges is the department comprising the Vosges mountain range, a rounded massif with peaks known as ‘chaumes’ that separates Alsace from Lorraine and gave its name to the department in 1790. These forests of fir and beech, these glacial lakes and crystal-clear torrents have inspired many painters, including Claude Gellée, known as Le Lorrain, and today form a regional nature park of the utmost importance.
The Vosges mountains are dotted with medieval castles, the ruins of which crown the ridges: Dabo, Falkenstein, Châtel-sur-Moselle, Épinal with its citadel and its Museum of the Image… In the Middle Ages, these fortresses formed the defensive line between the French royal domain and the Holy Roman Empire, a border that was not truly established until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Hohneck Castle and Sion Hill, a place of pilgrimage in Lorraine since the Middle Ages, bear witness to the dual defensive and spiritual nature of these borderlands.
Épinal, with its popular imagery and its departmental museum of ancient and contemporary art, and Remiremont, a former princely abbey whose noble canons enjoyed exceptional privileges, illustrate the cultural richness of a department often reduced to the image of its hiking trails and mountain chalets.