Dijon, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
A night without having to have the fan on! A lovely cool change had blown in late the previous afternoon. The storm had moved on, leaving us with a crisp, fresh morning — beautiful!
I haven’t mentioned the symphony of church bells that chimed around us all through the day and night, although I was oblivious to any that rang between 12:15am and 3:45am. (There were at least two churches which rang their bells to signify the time, although they were certainly not synchronised!) I’m not sure if they were all silent during that time, or whether that’s when I had my soundest sleep. Often, I awake in the middle of the night — the nearby church would eventually let me know the hour, which was either reassuring or not, depending on whether it struck only 4 times or 6 (or7)!
It was nice to have the whole morning to linger over breakfast and leisurely pack our bags. Michael bumped into the other owner of the apartment when he was taking some of our rubbish down to the bins in the courtyard. Luckily, Marc spoke English, enabling Michael to ask him whether we could stay on an extra hour, given that our train was not departing until 1:30pm.
At about 12pm, we left the apartment looking very neat and tidy, although we didn’t bother vacuuming it, as I had tried the vacuum cleaner a few days earlier and discovered that the suction was almost nonexistent, even after I’d emptied it and cleaned the filthy filter. How much more pleasant it was walking in the sunshine than it had been for the whole week in Colmar! It took about 15 minutes to drag our bags to the railway station — in retrospect, we should have asked if we could have stayed on in the apartment until 12:30! We killed the time by logging on to the free wifi.
The train pulled in punctually at 1:29pm. We raced to find the carriage we had been allocated, but then were stumped as to how to open the sliding glass doors into the main seating area! Finally, a helpful man sitting inside indicated to me that I should push a button above the doors — still nothing happened. Then he signalled that I should pull the doors apart. I had already tried doing this, but clearly with insufficient force. Finally, the doors reluctantly opened, and in we went. Michael made room on one of the storage shelves, only to have a young woman thank him and, not realising he hadn’t been making room for my case, place her bag there! Luckily, he was able to squeeze all the bags in. We sat in our designated seats and settled in for the 2-hour journey to Dijon.
Not long into the trip, Michael broke out in a sweat, questioning whether we were on the right train or not! The information board at the station seemed to indicate that the train’s final destination was Strasbourg, but looking at the map, that would mean we were going in the wrong direction.
Michael entertained the idea that the train was heading in a big loop, but the screen at the front of the carriage indicated that we were actually going in the right direction after all. I suspect that we had actually been looking at the arrivals screen, rather than the departures screen! Once the adrenalin rush had settled down, we amused ourselves for the rest of the trip — Michael used the train’s wifi, of course, and I wrote a letter.
Our first impression of Dijon was that it’s a very clean and white city. Apparently, many of its buildings are constructed from Burgundy sandstone. We oriented ourselves and then began the 15-minute walk into the city centre. Much of the centre of the city is a car-free zone, with only the occasional small electric bus to watch out for. The moment we found the door leading off one of the shopping streets to our apartment, a young woman (which to me now means anyone younger than 50!) stepped in front of us to unlock the door — she had been waiting for us to arrive.
She led us through a dark, narrow corridor and then up some crooked stairs to a small door. Inside was a surprisingly cute one-room apartment. Marguerite showed us where everything was stored (just as well, otherwise we might never have discovered the hidden cutlery drawer — a small drawer inside another drawer!). We were also shown how to double lock the door and asked to do so whenever we go out.
After settling in, we went for a wander through the streets, stopping at the tourist information office where we booked to climb the Phillipe le Bon Tower at 10:30am the next day. The Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy is very impressive, as are the churches and cathedral, all of which are quite close to each other. I’ll let my photos speak for themselves!
Dinner was left-overs, which Michael had dragged with him from Colmar, with some chicken we bought from the nearby Monoprix. I collapsed into bed at 9pm (I don’t think I’d slept very well the previous night — again!). The noisy upstairs neighbours (whose drunken rantings must have woken up the whole neighbourhood) didn’t really bother me until they started up again at 6am. Still, by then I’d slept for nearly 9 hours. Apparently, Michael’s sleep was disturbed by the loud raucous, not to mention the fact that they left their dog at home by itself earlier in the evening — its loud barking echoed down the street for quite some time.
Barb
2018-08-12
Gorgeous half timbered houses
Tracy
2018-08-13
Looks delightful. Love Monoprix
Ian
2018-08-18
Your descriptions of moving on days are nearly always full of great descriptions of various disasters befalling you that could marr your well laid plans. But lo and behold, your persevering eventuates in the problem solved, usually at the last critical minute. Today was no exception- church bells ringing throughout the night from the place you left to drunken ranting heard from your apartment in Dijon; train punctual, but then the fiasco with the doors not opening until a kindly passenger indicated the location above the sliding doors of the button that had to be pressed; Michael in a sweat thinking that the train you were on was going in the opposite direction to your destination until you both realised that the camera on the train was directed to the scene from the back of your train; then there was the young woman who made use of the space on the cabin shelf that Michael prepared for you and thanked you accordingly, but fortunately Michael,was able to clear further space for your belongings. All is well that ends well The peacefullness of your site seeing in the afternoon and the splendid architecture of the houses, churches and cathedrals and the grandeur of the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy were well worth any stresses of your mornings departure from Colmar.