Flashback Post: Dijon, France
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Note from Mike: I was cleaning up old blog posts and realized this had not been published yet.
Let’s go back to January 22-29, 2017. The end of our time in Europe before we head halfway around the world.
Sunday. Our last morning in Lyon consisted of Mike and me packing and cleaning, L and G packing their stuff and then watching “The Duke” on Netflix (a story about a dog who inherited a kingdom!?), and all of us eating croissants, and giving a quick hello to Cecile’s mom, who was coming in as we were going out, before catching the train to Dijon! What could have been better than a train station with a FREE Foosball table?
Upon arriving in Dijon, the first building we saw on the platform had a sign painted on the side: Moutarde: “Grey-Poupon”! C’etait parfait!
Mike got a message from the woman who owns the AirBnB apartment that her brother would be late meeting us, so we had about an hour and a half before we could get into the apartment. We found a “Leo” restaurant and decided that it would be a good spot to stop. We shared a couple of sandwiches and 2 gaufres (waffles) — one with nutella and one with chantilly (crème fouettée). Yummy! One of the sandwiches was with ham and parsley (a specialty in this region of France).
After eating, it was time to walk to the apartment to meet Mandy’s brother and his girlfriend. (We could tell even in the dark that it felt like a cool city…more our size.) They were super nice and reminded us of Tristan (and his girlfriend) in Annecy. They showed us everything we needed to know about the apartment and tried to use English as much as they could and were apologetic about not speaking English very well. Oh my! Pas de probleme!!! I wish we (me) could have spoken French better, but G and L were our translators once again. 🙂
Monday. On our first full day in Dijon, we walked up to the Tourist Office and bought a booklet and kids’ brochure for a self-guided tour around Dijon. It was really well done, and we had a fun time following la chouette (the owl) around and seeing some of the sights around the old city. The map had numbered destinations that corresponded to the owls found on brass plaques in the sidewalks and streets and provided various routes to take, making the tour as long or short as we wanted. The original owl is carved on the side of l’Eglise Notre Dame and the tradition says if you rub the owl with your left hand and make a wish, your wish will come true! Unfortunately, it was one of the coldest days we’d had so far, so we didn’t finish the whole tour, but planned to do more of it later in the week.
On the way back to our apartment, we stopped at the market for some groceries for lunch and dinner. While eating, we discovered (being in the bourgogne region of France) that “bourgogne” and “burgundy” are the same thing! The French and English equivalents of each other!! 🙂 No wonder they always seemed interchangeable!
Tuesday. We made our way to the market, which is only open specific days of the week (luckily this includes Tuesdays). It’s housed in a large building designed by Gustave Eiffel and basically offers meat, fish, and produce from many different vendors. As we headed out, we were curious about a stack of dough-like things at one of the counters, so L asked the guy about them. He offered us all a sample and told us they were beignets! They were the flat kind — not the New Orleans-style — so we didn’t recognize them. We bought a bag to share. Yummy!
We continued down the street and stopped in a couple of cute toy stores. One was a bit young for the kids (kind of like Peapods), but we found some cute cards. The woman also showed us some games the kids might enjoy, as we were trying to find some small things to entertain us for the plane ride to Australia.
As we were walking around, we spotted some more of la chouette, so we followed the path a while and found another toy store, which reminded us a bit of Au Pays des Miniz in Annecy. The woman was super sweet. She talked us through all the different games and possibilities. She also told us about an Australian family that lives in France and how their 3 kids participated in one of their classes. We ended up buying a small math game to use on the plane.
We continued our walk following the owl trail and then were stopped suddenly by an older woman on a bike. She started talking loudly/yelling to us…we weren’t sure why and as she went on we realized that she thought it was too cold for the kids and was telling us about museums in Dijon that we have to go to. All of this was in fast, loud French, so we were doing our best to understand what she was trying to tell us. 🙂 She also said make sure to push open the big wooden doors to see the mansions and courtyards. She was so excited about telling us stuff. It was very cute!
Wednesday. We took the train to Paris and back. It was a fast trip to collect the luggage we’d left at our friend’s house in November before we left for Finland/UK/France! It was basically a day in the life of a commuter! 🙂
On the way there…and on the way back. A long day.
Thursday. We worked on getting our stuff organized for Australia — what to pack, what to send home, and what to donate. Afterwards, we walk to the old city to see the inside of the cathedral (l’Eglise Notre Dame) and a museum about burgundy life. When we got back to the apartment, we watched a very sweet movie set in Australia (how appropriate) called “Paper Planes”.
In the museum of burgandy life, I loved the displays, where they incorporated the descriptions as part of the display.
Friday. We spent some time at the Edmond Fallot Mustard shop sampling mustard at the mustard bar, of course!
As we walked to the Musee des Beaux-Arts, we passed under Porte Guillaume (which looked like a mini Arc de Triomphe) and spent a few minutes in Jardin Darcy, where we found a sculpture of frogs singing to children and also a polar bear sculpture! The original polar bear sculpture was created by the Burgundian sculptor Francois Pompon and resides at Musee D’Orsay in Paris. The city of Dijon commissioned a copy of it in homage to Pompon.
The Musee des Beaux-Arts was magnificent! It’s located in the palace that used to house the dukes of Burgandy. There was a beautiful collection of art ranging from antiquity to contemporary and also included an impressive collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures…and also huge doors and cool places to sit and read or think.
Above: The words above L’s head says: The last ceremony of the court of Burgandy was held in 1474.
Below: Tombs and a giant fireplace in the Hall of the Tombs of the Dukes of Burgandy. [I think the two lying next to one another are John the Fearless (also known as John of Valois and John I of Burgundy) and his wife (Margaret of Bavaria)].
Saturday. We spent the morning packing and repacking boxes and then traipsing to the post office to send them home, as we didn’t feel the need to schelp our winter gear to Australia. That afternoon we did a tour of the Phillip Le Bon Tower, enjoying the ornate carvings in the stairwell which was part of the ducal palace as we climbed the 316 steps for beautiful views of the city.
