Dijon

 We headed out to the Gare de Lyon early Wednesday morning to begin our trip to Dijon.  Gare de Lyon is gorgeous - it  still looks like a 19th century station.  The train ride was great, as usual, and we arrived in a very cold Dijon right on time.  We found our hotel, Hotel Jaquemart, fairly easily, but we were too early to check in, so we left our bags and set out to walk the town.  

Dijon is full of churches, a couple of which were exceptionally beautiful.  The stained glass windows, and the quality of light they created, set them apart from other cathedrals we have visited.  We spent much of our time in the churches trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to capture their beauty with our cameras.

We had lunch at a small creperie across from our hotel.  We both had the menu of the day, which was a galette, salad, dessert crepe, and glass of wine or cider.  I still haven't figured out the difference between a galette and a crepe.  I had a tuna galette, which as far as I could tell was no different from the chocolate crepe I had for dessert.  They were both delicious, particularly with the extra piece of butter they add to the top for good measure.

After checking into the hotel, which was a bit funky, but very clean (and big- 3 beds!) we continued to check out the city.  It's not large, so we were able to cover everything in a day.  It's very medieval looking and atmospheric, so there were photo ops at every turn.

We purchased a bottle of burgandy (the local wine) to take back to the hotel to celebrate my birthday and then went out to look for a place to dine.  Unlike Paris, Dijon appears to roll up the sidewalks early - we couldn't find much that looked appetizing, so we settled on a small take-out pasta place and dined on ravioli in the room.  I postponed my festive birthday dinner to another day.

On Thursday we checked out of the hotel and met Nicolas, our guide for the wine tasting tour, at 9:00 am.  Nicolas was great - very friendly and very knowledgeable.  We were the only people on the tour (I think we were the only tourists in Dijon that day) so we (meaning Dave) could ask lots of questions.  He filled us in on the history of winemaking in the Burgandy region as we drove out to the countryside.  We first stopped at a small winery that has been in the same family for four generations.  It's not open to the public, but Nicolas is acquainted with the owners, so he can do tastings there for his customers.  We went into the cave where they store the wine (they have vintages back to the 1800s stored there) and the barrels.  We then tasted several wines, and of course bought one.

We continued through the absolutely gorgeous countryside to a second winery, which was open to the public (although we were the only ones there) and tasted more great wines.  We returned to Dijon about 12:30 (all that wine before noon!) but our train wasn't leaving until 5:00.  We went to the train station intending just to store our bags and do some more sightseeing, but it was so cold outside, we couldn't bring ourselves to venture back out, so we found a warm and cozy spot in a cafe in the station and planted ourselves there all afternoon, drinking coffee and reading.  It was a nice way to end a wonderful trip.

Cathedral

Dijon's Les Halles market

Les Halles

for Annie

Main square

Another gorgeous cathedral

Detail on baptismal font

WINE TASTING TRIP

Second winery we visited

Eiffel Tower Walk

Sunday's gorgeous weather disappeared on Monday, and we were back to overcast skies.  We decided to walk back to the Louvre and retrace our steps on the photo tour to re-take some of the shots Rebecca showed us on the Photo Tour.  Since the lighting was very grey rather than sunny, we did get some very different shots.

As we were walking along the river we could spot just a bit of the Eiffel Tower in the distance - the rest was shrouded in the fog.  We hadn't yet visited the tower this trip, we decided to make the long walk to check it out.  As always, it was breathtaking -- it never fails to amaze, no matter how many times you have seen it.  There was hardly anyone there, which I have never seen before.  It is usually a mob scene.  We worked awhile on our artsy fartsy tower shots, had some hot chocolate, and headed back along the river towards our apartment.

On our walk back I was very excited that we were victims of the famous gold ring scam that I have read about on the internet.  In fact, we were hit twice in the span of about five minutes.  I am still unclear on how the scam is supposed to pay off, but a person (usually a gypsy) walks by you, then stops and picks up something on the ground.  They then approach you to say you dropped your gold ring.  You tell them it's not yours and then they are somehow supposed to talk you out of some money.    Since I knew about it I just kept walking, although I did have to pull Dave away from trying help the woman.

That evening we had dinner at Leon de Bruxelles, which I have been wanting to do for years.  It is a chain restaurant, kind of like a French Appleby's, I think, but it serves moules et frites (mussels and fries).  It was delicious, and fairly inexpensive.  I went home a happy camper.

"Jalila is the most beautiful in the world"