France - Day 17

18-Jun-2007

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France - Day 17
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France - Day 31

 

Day 17 - Tuesday 17th May 2005

Up late again, had breakfast and sat out in the sun.  Ninya went home today, work commitments intervene, Cameron is staying until next Sunday.  About 11 we set off for Dijon.  It's a beautiful old city, capital of Burgundy when the Dukes were powerful.  After some difficulty parking in the underground parking garage (I would have no hope in the Land Cruiser), we set off for a tour round the city. The building are built very solidly of stone and most seem to date from the 1400s.  Many of the streets curve and new vistas open up round every corner.  There are beautiful churches, some covered in gargoyles, public building and old palaces.  Tunnelled laneways open into sunlit courtyards.  We went into an old church with soaring architecture.  On the way out Cameron mistook a beggar for the rector and thanked him for allowing us into the church, I dropped a few centimes into his bowl.  (Cameron thought he was holding an ashtray, lucky he doesn’t smoke).

We went round to the market but unfortunately it only opens in the morning so we kept wandering. We picked up a "Follow The Owl" guide book from the tourist office and followed the little brass arrows set in the pavement guiding us around some of the important locations in Dijon.  We only followed about  third of the route as we had to drop Ninya at the train.  (We'll come back later in the week and do the rest).  Ninya left at 4:00 on the high speed train for Paris.  We then headed back home, after a little navigational difficulty we ended up on the right track.  Picked up some supplies in Pouilly-en-Auxois on the way home.  It was nice and sunny when we arrived at "The Old Mill" so we went for a walk along the creek going round the house to find the old millstone, we clambered down the banks of the creek and eventually found it covered in moss.  It was rimmed with an iron hoop but was crumbling.  I picked a piece of it up as a souvenir.  Back at the house we opened up the Vosne-Romanee that we bought yesterday and had that with some Pate-de-Fois-Gras and sat outside in the sun for a while.   Dinner was some steak and some lovely asparagus together with the rest of the wine and another bottle of Burgundy from the cellar.  Remainder of the evening saw us sitting around the fire and reading.

 

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