Briancon Hotels

Briançon is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes department in the region in southeastern France. It is the sub-prefecture of the department. At 1,350 meters it is the second highest city in Europe after Davos. It is built on a plateau nucleated around confluence of the Durance and the Guisane. Briançon was the Brigantium of the Romans and formed part of the kingdom of King Cottius. Brigantium was marked as the first place in Gallia after Alpis Cottia .At Brigantium the road branched, to the west through Grenoble to modern Vienne), on the Rhone; to the south through Ebrodunum (modern Embrun), to modern Gap. Both the Antonine Itinerary and the Table give the route from Brigantium to Vapincum. The Table places Brigantium 6 M.P. from Alpis Cottia. Strabo mentions the village Brigantium, and on a road to the Alpis Cottia, but his words are obscure. Ptolemy mentions Brigantium as within the limits of the Segusini, or people of Segusio (modern Susa), in Piedmont; but it seems, as D'Anville observes, to be beyond the natural limits of the Segusini. Walckenaer justifies Ptolemy in this matter by supposing that he follows a description of Italy made before the new divisions of Augustus, which we know from Pliny. Walckenaer also supports his justification of Ptolemy by the Jerusalem Itinerary, which makes the Alpes Cottiae commence at Rama between Embrun and Briancon. About 1040 it came into the hands of the counts of Albon (later dauphins of the Viennois) and thenceforth shared the fate of the Dauphinee. The Briançonnais included not merely the upper valley of the Durance (with those of its affluents, the Gyronde and the Guil), but also the valley of the Dora Riparia and that of the Chisone these glens all lying on the eastern slope of the chain of the Alps. But by the treaty of Utrecht (1713) all these valleys were handed over to Savoy in exchange for that of Barcelonnette, on the west slope of the Alps. In 1815 Briançon successfully withstood a siege of three months at the hands of the Allies, a feat which is commemorated by an inscription on one of its gates