Our Day in Dijon

September 6 and 7
The 40 minutes train trip to Dijon was totally pleasant! The station is an easy walk into the old city. THEN, though we had to get acclimated to find our way to our destinations!! There were two museums we wanted to see. And, of course, everything closes from roughly 12-2, so we had to hurry!! The first was Musee de la Vie Bourguignonne, which showed us life in Dijon and Burgundy in days past. It was fascinating, and I really enjoyed it. (And it was free!)

Loved the "walker"!

Plus they had a wide selection of old fashioned shops, such as a beauty parlor, furrier which showed the hats and coats they made, etc.

Furrier

Clock and watch repair

Display window for beauty parlor

I can only imagine what this felt like!

 We left when the museum closed and looked for a place for lunch. We had brought some suggestions from (of course!) the Lonely Planet. They were all quite close, but we wanted a shady outside place, because it was very hot!! So we chose Chez Leon....delicious...I had scallops!! It was sort of a going away lunch, as Kathy and Diane were leaving for to Switzerland on Sunday morning.

Our next stop was Musee Magnin, a historic town house, which the Magnin brother and sister had given to the city. It contained many paintings from the Italian Renaissance as well as Flemish and medieval paintings. I had thought it would be more about the house than it was, so I wasn't especially thrilled by this stop. They allowed no pictures!

By this time, we decided to take an earlier train back. Kathy visited a church; Diane did some shopping; I was still sorting out phone issues, so I visited a few phone stores.

Saturday morning, after Kathy and Diane packed, we went to nearby Montbard, where we had seen signs for a Foire. We looked at a booklet we had picked up, and it really seemed like it might be combination home show and car displays...we were not totally clear!

Diane and one of our "neighbors"!

It was pretty funny to watch these piglets! One had trouble fitting in!

We were right, but there were booths with wine tastings, other animals (think 4H Fair), cheese and sausage purchases, etc. Diane bought a scarf;  I bought some earrings. We had a croque monsieur for lunch (grilled ham and cheese under a broiler.) These are sold everywhere, and I had never had one! It was a slightly rainy day, so there were not that many people there. Maybe everyone would be there at night for the rides for the kids! It definitely gave me a good slice of "local color"!

The town of Alise-Ste-Reine is quite close to the house; we had actually been there earlier in our tour. This time, we were going back to visit the pottery shop which I had spotted.  David, the potter, is very pleasant; his studio is right next door to his shop. He speaks no English, but we managed to take a few pieces home with us. (I only bought two small bowls, since I don't want to carry much stuff around!) In addition, he also gave us each a small bowl, which we could pick out for ourselves!

The one of the left has great colors; the other one was my gift!

Most towns in France have a Salle des Fetes, where many celebrations are held in town. I LOVED this sign, because this little town has a Room for Many Uses.

But we had bigger plans for Saturday night at 8! In the TI flyer, we had spotted a boogie woogie concert in Beurizot! Jean Pierre Bertrand, top boogie woogie piano player in France, was playing at the Grange. I had had to email the Mayor (!) to tell him we would be coming. We stopped at a local restaurant in nearby Vitteau for dinner; we were really too early to have an interesting meal, as he wasn't serving his dinner menu yet. He offered us quiche and green beans. It was tuna quiche, which Kathy couldn't eat, but she ate lots of green beans! The ice cream was mine, and thought the green decoration was interesting!


And we went maybe 5 km to Beurizot to the concert. We joked that we would be the only ones there....NOT SO!!! The Grange was packed! We noted that the mayor did have a sheet to "check off" attendees; he did not speak with us (we won't vote for him!), but obviously we were the only Americans there!  Clearly many had not RSVP'd, as they kept having to put out more chairs. Kathy(who never took French!) did a great job of translating the Mayor's introduction. Apparently this was to celebrate the new grange. The concert was wonderful!!! www.jpboogie.com

The Mayor's introduction!

Too dark to see, but new range is very nice!

                            

Many towns in France have relationship with towns in other countries. I spotted this sign on the wall of the Grange which shows that Beurizot sponsors Yerpa in Tibet. In some places they call them Twinning cities/towns, which I learned from Soline in Brioude.

Because the concert was free, we each bought some of his CDs. Hope you have a minute to hear him. We all loved it!! We actually left at the intermission, since we would be going to the train station early the next morning!