Dijon

Dijon

I'm writing at the end of a day wandering round Dijon... a lovely place, very lively and full of young people thronging the antique streets. Yesterday (Friday) we spent a day driving gently south from Chalon, had a picnic by a canal, saw a menhir (at la Haute Borne) which was tightly railed in to prevent the farmer from knocking it down..whoever did the negotiations obviously drove a hard bargain as there is barely a foot around it. It is quite something, limestone and eroded, it may have been much taller when put into place. In England one would associate this with stone age or maybe bronze age people, but here it is labelled Gallo-Romain, so who knows?
We arrived at Dijon in the late afternoon. Again the campsite is now surrounded by roads, rail, etc. but has the most marvellous collection of different trees of all kinds. Lots of bean trees, pines, things I have never seen. They are mostly losing their leaves so we get lots of crunch underfoot.
Sadly no WiFi as in the last place, though the man in the accueil says we can get it if we sit on the ground outside the cafe, which is now shut, but claims to be a hotspot.
A couple checking in at the same time as us asked us to go and play cards with them later...in the event our supper was too late and I was too tired but I was relieved at this, wondering if they were in fact professional wandering cardsharps. Silly.
We walked out of the site to the nearest local supermarket – an old-fashione shop by modern French standards, with relatively little choice. It was a Spar in a slightly tatty district and just as in so many English supermarkets there was a child being smacked by its very young harrassed mother, and wailing for a while afterwards.
Still we got a few bits and bobs and came home to the tent to make a shrimp risotto, with a salad including our own home-grown tomatoes. Very nice too.
Then bed – and oh, it got cold. Down to 5 degrees. Cold noses, cold anything not buried in duvet or rugs.
And explosions – really loud bangs, presumably fireworks though we saw no flashes. And being so near the railway we had goods trains passing all night.... so not restful, but somehow an adventure and we got up this morning in good humour. It turns out you can make v good toast using a heat-spreader if you move the slice of bread about a bit.
The bus into Dijon leaves from very near the site, costs one euro and is a modern bendybus. Once in Dijon you can use the free navettes which whizz around, so access is easy. The town is great fun, wooden and stone buildings, lots of pride, history, carving, statues, huge churches, a palace or two, lots of shops, hustle and bustle and masses of young people. We did a bit of a walking tour, went into les Halles (huge cast-iron covered market), bought fruit and spinach for supper tonight. I bought a long cardigan, we had lunch in Cafe Kent which was thronging with locals, went to the Musee d'Archaeology, the Musee des Beaux Arts, the cathedral, etc etc etc. Wonderful expensive medieval architecture, crypts, tombs, church organs, etc. Bought a new card for the camera as I had somehow inadvertently put the file size to 8Mb which meant I filled it up without realising, dammit.
At lunch, Andrew told me he's invented a new pudding, called Boue Meringue, with some sort of chocolately sauce... which comes back to you.
Wearily back to the campsite, quite tired. I fear this is not a very interesting blog, because I am so tired, but I am soaking up the sounds and sights and we are having a lot of laughs. My dreams are also interesting: arranging a rendezvous for all my schoolmates at my granny's house, but fixing no food and making 2 of them do a radio interview against their will. Now, bugger it, I've forgotten the other two which were really good. I will try to recall them, but this is a very interesting area of fragile memory.... at one moment they are clearly held in the mind, and then pouf! gone!
Now I will go and try to load this sitting on the ground outside the shut cafe.
Aha! it works!