Finally made my first successful solo day trip in France, it was perfect weather and this city was so easily navigable it was great! Really this is my warm up for Lyon and then for LONDON next week!
Cathedrale St-Benigne, we'll come back to this later
Stumbled upon the "Port Guillaume" very easily, built in 1788. Reminds me of the obvious (arc de triomphe) just smaller.
La jardin Darcy, Darcy garden
More little gardens all over the city
Place de la Republique with this beautiful fountain, a Monument to Président Carnot
Follow la chouette...at first I couldn't find these but you follow them around the city to different landmarks and eventually you get to the owl at the side of the Notre Dame
La Nef
Grand Thêatre
Église Saint-Michel, simply gorgeous. Yes this is basically Liz's cathedral/old church tour of Europe. I'm not Catholic I just remember learning all about these in art history and going inside is just so peaceful
Ducked into the side of this building and there was more ancient sculpture, part of the museum of art
The palace of the Dukes! Where the Dukes of Burgundy lived
And then I finally found Notre Dame de Dijon (after thinking all the other churches were it) notice those lovely rows of gargoyles
"La tête du diable"
La chouette! It was very smooth and warn down. I thought it was good luck but apparently (since the 1800's) it's been told it grants a wish. And you know I'll touch all the landmarks to eventually get back to France
As Suzie recommened, I found Kir! I found a lovely inexpensive little cafe around the corner from Notre Dame with Kir for 3.50
I also ordered a "burger dijonais" it had the infamous maille mustard as well as (french) bacon it was great!
Inside the Duke's palace
I didn't go up the tour Philippe le bon, because they only like 19 people up at specific times and it was full unfortunately, but here is what it looks like from the top:
Then I proceeded to spend at least 2 hours in the Musée Beaux-arts de Dijon, which was Free! and gigantic, it's 3 floors of art from ancient to contemporary. I would of taken more pictures...if it was allowed. But if you're really curious you can view the collections: http://mba.dijon.fr/
I did my art history essay about funerary portraits/statues so it was exciting to see Egyptian Art!
The tombs of the Dukes
So much medieval art!
Place François Rude/Place du Bareuzai
Yep. The infamous mustard.
Same types of stores in Besançon/France in general just bigger than the ones we have here
Place du Président-Wilson or Place Wilson for short
L'église Saint Pierre
Couvent des Bernardimes-also a religous artifact museum
An old church turned into a theatre- Théâtre Dijon bourgone, all kinds of plays and spectacles
St-Philibert, a gothic church but this was the only one that wasn't open/repurposed somehow
Then I went back to the church/abbey in my first pictures here Saint-Bènigne which is also a beautiful museum of archaeology inside
Inside the Arquebuse/the botanic gardens, there's also a natural history museum but I didn't go inside
This garden smelled amazing
Another view of Place Darcy
In summary/on day tripping in France: I did lots of research online on wikipedia (french & english), wikitravel, tripadvisor etc. I had a general idea, when I got out of the train station I grabbed a map from the office of tourism and made a plan about where on earth I was going but I also had a map on my ipod ready (Mapswithme) you can download the maps and use them without wifi! Snacks, a water bottle and good walking shoes are a given also checking the weather ahead of time, it was so easy to get around here and so many parks where you could rest and lots of restaurants (kebab etc) with free wifi. It was a lovely little voyage.
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