Farewell to Flavigny and Jean et Nicole, with a few hours in Dijon — Monday, 11 July

I'm writing this on Thursday morning. How can time pass so quickly! This is my first crack at the internet in a few days. It's nearly noon here, approaching 5:00 am in Wisconsin. You are surely still asleep!

On Monday morning, we prepared to leave the lovely house in Flavigny. I took one last stroll through the garden and here's what I saw on the rosemary plant:

Just to give you the size of this little critter:

One last look at the house before we go outside:

Here's a last look at the front of the house. I figured out why that one window is blocked. It's not boarded up, it's stone that fills that space. Why? Because the chimney for the fireplace is right exactly in that spot. (Today it's a charming living room fireplace; it was originally the cooking fire for the kitchen.) 

Below the lower window you can see sort of a stone spigot — long ago, that was for the kitchen sink! What an interesting story this house could tell if it could speak! The little white door at street level opens to the cellar, a few steps below.

This is the view of Flavigny from the road:

It's easy to fall in love with this place. As you can see:

We drove for about an hour on a toll road. How much did that cost? Ooh! About €14. And how much  does it cost to fill the tank on the Volkswagen? About €50.

Our destination on Monday was Dijon, where I could catch a train to Frasne. (More about that later.)

The center of Dijon is for pedestrians only. Very nice. Take a look:

That unique shape of the stone above the windows is here, too:

Hiding from the rain in a doorway:

Look closely and you'll see it:    LIBERTE  ...  EGALITE  ...  FRATERNITE

Notice the intricate carving in the wood at the bottom:

It's hard to see, but the third carving from the left is a bunch of grapes with a snail. In the second carving from the left, the guy's beard is a bunch of grapes! You can tell what's important in Dijon.

This is the back of the church:

Another ancient building with detailed design in wood:

The owl is the symbol of Dijon. The addresses of the buildings in the center of town are marked with these metal plaques embedded in the street:

On the corner of a building there is a stone owl, which passersby are encouraged to touch. It's so smooth, you can tell that it's been touched millions of times.

We walk around the corner and come to the front of the church, decorated with gargoyles:

Inside the church, where we'd have pews, there are rows of chairs:

Back in the street, this gentleman was playing his accordion. The tune was one I heard my mother sing. Maybe you know it? The words begin, "Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed!"  I always enjoyed thinking of it as "Oh, Howie danced ...."  Ha.  I  had to give the man a Euro for the happy memory.

 What comes to mind when you hear "Dijon"?  Yep, mustard! Here's the spot where tourists buy their souvenir mustard. I was tempted, but then I remembered the shop at the mustard museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

Dijon has its own Arc!

From here, after a lovely lunch in the garden of an art museum — we ate under a large umbrella in the rain — Jean and Nicole took me to the train station and we said goodbye. Thank you, Jean and Nicole, for an excellent time in Bourgogne! 

I got off the train in the town of Frasne, and will save that for the next post. Au revoir...