18th Installment: Dijon, Home of Grey Poupon

It’s four hours from Marseille to Dijon by train. The lush rolling hills and vineyards of the Burgundy region, home to some of France’s best wines, cheeses, and chocolate, led us to its historical capital. Positioned in the eastern quadrant towards Switzerland and near Besançon, home of the world famous Comté cheeses (my personal fave) it is a city of 150,000+.

Home to classical architecture, it is extremely well maintained, and mostly flat (finally). We are here on a whirlwind tour and will be moving on to Paris in the morning. Because of the 4 day long weekend in France I wasn’t able to book a train directly to Paris from Marseille and we chose Dijon based on rave reviews from the traveling online public for a stopover. It is a gem and a big surprise as I only knew it by it’s famous mustard, created in 1777, Grey Poupon.

I chose a studio in the historical center expecting that all of our exploring would be on foot and to make every moment count. It turns out that the studio was renovated 3 years ago by the young owner from an empty shell and was a complicated layout with a prominent beam that looked like it was taken from Noah’s ark, and canted ceilings.

He did a masterful job and the more time that we spent in the room I couldn’t find a thing that I would change. Custom woodwork throughout with plenty of electrical outlets, first class plumbing, custom stone tile shower, and deep-seated windows in the 20″ thick stone walls that totally insulated us from the busy walking street outside.

We had a lovely meal at Bouillon right across from Notre-Dame, just 60 meters from our apartment.

After a brief walk in the rain, where we were tracing our steps to the station to be sure we knew the route for our early (9 o’clock) train, we were inside the lobby starting our climb up the 41 stairs to our room when we heard a commotion above us and we picked up the pace and found a woman struggling with her walker on step 35. Being the gentleman that I am I offered to take control and clear her path by moving the balky wheeled unit to a broad open air patio that separated her place from ours and a few others at the top of the stairs.

Of course we struck up a conversation and we were introduced to Stella Totty from Liverpool. She was bulky in stature and was dealing with considerable swelling in her lower legs which made her attempt at maneuvering her transport and herself up the double-length staircase all the more ambitious.

Stella suffered a life-changing accident 7 years ago (broken back) and has adjusted her lifestyle to include more travel, usually with her sister. We became familiar with life in Liverpool and she insisted that we spend time in Britain to have a well-rounded attitude of Canada’s mother country. Unless they improve their weather and find a solution to $12 coffees it’s unlikely though. We chatted for close to half an hour with a misting of rain falling on us and then parted ways. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get my new-friend experience in for the day.

I almost forgot. Back in Marseille I went for my obligatory foreign haircut experience and found the barbershop of my dreams. I even had the pleasure of watching a young boy get his first haircut and how the staff took great pains to put him at ease and make it a special moment for the young parents.

My barber was Omsay, the proprietor. West African name (I looked it up) but French all the way. While waiting I was able to see his handiwork shaving a young man, threading an older man’s eyebrows with his wife peaking her head in from side to side complementing him on his expertise,  and then me. I always start with the same line ‘Make me look like George Clooney ‘ and he did! Winner of best foreign haircut ever, I left a satisfied man. Carol even gave a thumbs up as she had to come collect me after an hour of touching everything in the store and buying nothing (her modus operandi).

I would recommend Dijon at least as a day trip from Paris and better as a two night’s stay if you can fit it into your itinerary.