Dijon and Troyes

We got to Dijon from Avignon (again on the train) on Friday. Dijon is indeed a beautiful old city. It too used to be a walled city but there are only a few remnants of the wall left - and yes, this is where they make the mustard. We walked to most of the tourist places, but on Saturday we took the free bus around town (as you would)! At the same time, the whole centre of town was turned into a marketplace with wall-to-wall people which was quite amazing in itself. When we asked, we were told that this happens once a year, so we were very lucky to be there on that very day.


The town square (place?) was about 600 metres from our hotel and it was a beautiful space. At the front of the square was the Musee de Beau Artes which has an amazing collection of paintings and sculptures. The building has a tower which everyone is able to climb to see the amazing view of the whole town and distant hills. An additional bonus is that it is free to climb on Sundays so it cost us nothing for the privilege!

The tower was three hundred and twenty three steps up (I know - I counted them!) We are starting to realise why we are both losing weight. The upside is that we were both able to climb the steps quite quickly without any problems at all.

These are a couple of the views that we were rewarded with for the effort.

We really enjoyed our three days in Dijon and would readily go back again.

On Monday we took the train to a relatively small provincial city about 150 kilometres north of Dijon called Troyes where we stayed two nights. We have been staying in relatively budget accomodation (by European standards) and the hotel in Dijon was a bit rough around the edges so we decided to treat ourselves to four star accomodation ($200 a night). It was a good hotel and, except for very poor lighting, worth the extra money.

Troyes is yet another pretty town built originally within walls. Its particular claim for notice is the preponderance of old medieaval buildings with external timber. Being in a very nice hotel in a beautiful old town we used our two days here to re-charge our batteries and just chill-out a bit. In this spirit, Judith made an appointment and had her fingernails manicured.