À Dijon

Parisa and co. have trooped off to spend the next few days in Cannes, because they at Paris-Sorbonne have already finished their exams, the lucky people. Most of my time has been spent revising, because I've still got just under a fortnight to go before my exams start - but no way was I just going to sit around on my lonesome and do nothing but read while they're all down at the beach, *goes green with envy* - so I broke out of my revision schedule on Saturday to spend the day in Dijon!

It was actually a toss up for quite a while between there and Lyon, which is somewhere else I wouldn't have minded going if I'd had the time, but in the end, Dijon is just thaaaaat much closer, thaaaat much cheaper and much smaller - vis-à-vis, better suited for a day trip.

I'll start by saying a word or two about French train travel, however. When I went to Strasbourg back in December, I went by TGV and I printed my tickets at home. All's well and good.

This time, I went by TER, from Paris-Bercy, and I wasn't given the option to print my tickets at home, I had to collect them from the station.

And here is my advice. If ever you are travelling by train in France, and you need to pick up your e-tickets at the machine, leave plenty of time to get to the station. And if you've already left plenty of time: Leave more.

The SNCF ticket machines are confusing. Being a good Erasmus student, I tried to pick them up using the French language option at first, but eventually I had to switch to English and I still had no idea which option I was supposed to select. Every option I did select decided to pretend my reference number didn't exist.

So I joined the ticket queue to beg for help. Except that buying tickets in France is apparently nothing like at home where you tell them the destination, hand over the cash and get given your ticket in the space of a couple of minutes, because everyone in front of me was going through a ridiculously long drawn out process, and I mean long. It appeared to involve the filling out of forms and all kinds of other things. I'm not joking - I actually started to wonder if I was in the queue to take out a mortgage and buy a house, rather than collect a train ticket. A nice four bedroom place, in a cul de sac, with a decent sized garden for the children and the dog. That kind of thing.

You get my point. Minutes crawled by, to the point that I literally had my face in my hands, feeling increasingly nauseous and wondering with sinking heart just how I was going to explain to my parents, who very kindly gave me the money for the ticket, that I'd gone and missed the train.

Clearly, as I'm writing a blog post about Dijon, I got my ticket and made it on to the train (with literally minutes to spare, causing me to have a minor heart attack before we'd even got to 8am - not a great start, I grant you). But there is a lesson to be learned from this story: in France, they take things s.lo.w. Plenty of time still won't be enough time. Remember that, people *wise face*.

Got there in the end!

Having said that, the train journey itself was an absolute pleasure, because we took a winding route through the countryside, and out of the window there was an image of true France, and all drenched in the May sunshine. I would post pictures, but they're all a bit blurry :(

Dijon itself is beautiful, and reminds me in some ways of Strasbourg, in that there are still a lot of traditional wood/timber buildings, although obviously with more if a 'French' feel to it. Unlike Strasbourg, Dijon doesn't have UNESCO world heritage status, and I cannot fathom why. It's beautiful, and absolutely brimming over with character, full of buildings which date from the Middle Ages to the very beginning of the 20th century. It's another one of those cities which was lucky enough to escape the bombing during WW2. 

After I got off the train, I stopped in at the tourist information office and picked up le parcours de la chouette, or the owl trail, for €3.50. The owl is the mascot, if you like, of Dijon. You follow little arrows which have been set in the pavement all around the historic city centre (although they do have a habit of disappearing at a few inconvenient moments), like so...

Given that I was literally only there for the day, I reckon it was probably the best way to see everything and to know exactly what it was I was looking at! The trail starts out in the Jardin Darcy, which according to the little guide I picked up in the tourist office was the town's first public garden, created in 1880. It also, judging by what I saw yesterday, seems to be very popular with newly married couples. I must have counted three pairs coming into this garden alone, and I wasn't even in there very long!

The entrance to Old Dijon proper is through this gate, Porte Guillaume, which used to be part of the city's walls. It also marks the start of Rue de la Liberté, one of the main shopping streets in Dijon, which connects to Place de la Libération at the other end. 

I was lucky enough to end up in Dijon on market day. Les Halles, the covered market in Dijon was designed by Gustave Eiffel, who was born in Dijon and who also designed, (no guesses here), the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 

Les Halles and the surroundings streets were absolutely alive when I wondered through them, and some of the foods they had there looked like they were to die for, and it smelt absolutely amazing. 

This is Dijon's Notre Dame (I swear there seems to be one of these whichever way you look in this country!). It dates from the 13th century, and is known partly for the gargoyles which line the west side, which is in the picture, but mostly for the existence of this little fellow: 

"La Chouette" - the owl, is a tiny scultpure on the side o f Notre Dame. The people of Dijon consider it to be a good luck charm, and it's a tradition to rub it with your left hand as you pass it - when I was there, I saw several people doing this, so really it's no wonder that it has been worn down so much!

The church above I mention only because its one of a number of buildings I noted in Dijon which have their roof tiles arranged in unusual patterns. I googled it, but I didn't really get any reason as to why this is, just this quote from Dijon's wikipedia page,

"Dijon architecture is distinguished by, among other things, toits bourguignons (Burgundian polychrome roofs) made of tiles glazed in terracotta, green, yellow and black and arranged in geometric patterns."

...which doesn't help much, but there we go. It looks good.

After I completed the main route on the trail, I stopped into a restaurant near Porte Guillaume for something to eat. Dijon is actually the capital of the Côte-d'Or département of France, which was one of the original departments formed after the French Revolution, from the former province of Bourgogne (Burgundy). It's a region which is home to a lot of dishes which have become internationally known as typically french, like Coq au Vin and Beef Bourguignon. So I decided to cross another thing off of my France bucket list and have something typically French - I had l'escargots - snails - for starter.

And they weren't bad! I've had them before, a long time ago, but I didn't really remember much about them. They're quite meaty, and as for taste, I'd have to say that they remind me in a lot of ways of certain types of shellfish - perhaps mussels, perhaps something else, I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly it was, but there we go. If you are one of those (cough, strange, cough) people who claims to hate all seafood, I doubt you'd like snails. For everyone else, I recommend you give them a try!

For main, I had magret de canard (duck) with chips and a side salad with, obviously, a salad dressing based on dijon mustard.

And for pudding, I had Crême Brûlée, which was fine, but I prefer my Crême Brûlée warm, and this was served cold.

For all three courses and a drink, it was only €30, which I didn't think was bad at all! 

After I'd finished eating, I headed over to Maille, famous for its mustard. They have branches in Paris and London too but of course, Dijon is its true home. Call me a mustard heathen, but I was under the impression that mustard came in English, French and Wholegrain, but no, far from it. 

They had flavours the likes of which I'd never seen before (although to be fair, that you could have flavours of mustard never really crossed my mind), from nut to apricot and curry, from parmesan and basil to cassis, another Dijon favourite. I tried the red fruits mustard (a bright pink colour) but it, er, wasn't for me *cough*.

After that I headed into Galeries Lafayette - for no real reason at all. 

Galeries Lafayette is basically the same everywhere - Paris, Strasbourg, Dijon... And yet I still have to go in each one and have a look 🙈
— Victoria Goodsell (@9victoriag) May 17, 2014

Then, after sitting in the Place de la Libération for a while and enjoying the sun and my general surroundings (seriously, what i wouldn't give to be seven again. There was this one kid who kept trying to jump through the fountain without getting wet, and I swear, it kept him entertained for a good twenty minutes at least. He was laughing like a hyena, and I'm certain he would have carried on forever if his mum hadn't stopped him), I decided to do the two 'loops' i missed out when i was doing the owl trail.

These two loops covered the Sainte-Anne district, home to a former Bernadine monastry, Place Emile Zola, where Dijon's public executions took place until the turn of the 19th century, the Botantical Gardens and the Puits de Moïse, or the Well of Moses. I would put up pictures, but my phone had died by this point, and I've not transferred anything from my camera to my laptop yet (revising, don't you know). I might come back and add them to this post later, if I remember. 

So that's that! My train left Dijon at half seven, and all too soon I was back in Paris. I had a lovely day though, (I highly recommend visiting Dijon if ever you get the opportunity) and I'm glad I made the most of it. It would be a shame to waste the few weeks I have remaining here in Paris just because I have exams coming up. It's all about getting the right work/life balance, I suppose. 

Vicky xx