A Long Travel Day But a Great Start in L'Isle Sur La Sorgue

Three train rides, some delays and missed trains, and shlepping bags but we are here in L'Isle Sur la Sorgue, and so far, we love it. We will spend today exploring the town since we haven't seen more than our square. Our apartment is delightful with no low ceilings or weird toilet arrangements. And dinner last night at O'Bamon was so delightful that we made reservations for Monday night! The restaurant is owned by a young couple; he's the cook and she is everything out front. We started with pea soup and a baked egg dish for our first courses. Both were excellent but the egg dish was the big winner. Very gooey and cheesy and the prefect comfort food. It's early morning as I write this and and I'd love to have another one right now. 

Greg had pork tenderloin which was excellent and delicious sides, roasted squash and sunchokes. I had cod with pistachios on top that was sitting on pureed potatoes and braised leeks. Just a great dinner. 

A few hours later...

BB, you are so right! This is a beautiful town and I can see why it is one of your favorites. We walked around early this morning, and here are a couple of shots:

Our Final Full Day in Dijon, A Day of Transition, and Introduction to L'Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue

We spent most of our last full day in Dijon getting ready to move to Provence, but we did stop at our favorite coffee place (Wolf Coffee) and had a chance to chat with the owner. He's been so welcoming and kind to us, and starts making our flat whites as soon as he sees us come in. He wears a hat every day (he says he's losing his hair) and you can see the one he has on today. We told him how much we loved his city, and he expressed his love for Dijon saying it was one of the best examples of a mid-sized city in France that is clean, safe, and is in a desirable location. So true.

We spent the bulk of the day doing laundry, picking up and eating quiche for lunch, and starting to pack. Mid-afternoon, we walked to the Cathedrale Saint-Benigne to take a tour of rotunda. The church is massive and beautiful with an organ like I've never seen! Would love to hear it but guess I'm too late to try to find a time to do that. The tour of the rotunda was long and in French, and while the guide tried to give us a summery in English, it was was way too long for us. 

And if you're wondering "Ou est la Biblioteque?" It's here.

Beautiful reading room.

We had high hopes for our last dinner in Dijon but were very disappointed. L'Age de Raisin... just a few blocks from our apartment. It's a cute, cozy place and the owner was friendly and welcoming. We shared escargot which was fine but then it went downhill from there. Greg had Coq au Vin which was served with small helpings of several well prepared veggies. But the chicken was a small, unnameable part that was mostly bone and very little meat. The sauce was fabulous but that was about it. I had some au gratin dish that was supposed to have potatoes, mushrooms, and sausage. It was 90% potatoes which I like but... not that much. A very nice plum tart for dessert. 

The brown glob on the right was Greg's chicken. The brown glob on the left was nicely done eggplant.

We have eaten well here with all of the pastries, sandwiches, fresh fruit, quiches, prepared foods from the market, etc. But our dinners haven't been as wonderful as we imagined. We're hoping this changes.

A Day Trip to Besancon: Clocks, The Citadel, and Resistance

Yesterday we trained to Besancon, a city 50-minutes east of Dijon. It seemed smaller than Dijon and certainly with fewer tourists. But there were a couple of sites that interested us, so even in the rain, we were up for a visit.

The first stop was the Musee du Temps, The Time Museum. French clocks are not our thing, but it was hard not to be impressed with the history and design of some of the clocks and watches. This timepiece was created in the 1500's. 

And from small to large...

Quite a collection. In addition to the clocks and watches, there was time-related artwork. This rather upsetting painting is supposed to show Father Time cutting off the wings of Cupid indicating that Time overcomes all including Love. Hmm..,

Next stop was an enormous astrological clock that is housed in a church. It is currently being renovated so it wasn't working, but still was (according to Greg) 100% more impressive than he imagined. It took three years to build it (1858-1860) and it runs the clock on the outside of the cathedral as well as the bells. We were able to walk behind it to see the works too. It has 30,000 mechanical parts!

Next a quick lunch. We needed energy for the next site. Yes, that is another coffee eclair.

The Citadel of Besacon was built in 1674 and is massive. It currently contains a number of museums (and a petting zoo!) including the Museum of Resistance and Deportation which is where we were headed. But to get to the Citadel from the town, we had to walk up an incredibly steep and long hill plus an incredible number of steps (Greg counted 420) plus another another ridiculous hill. The view from the top was nice but we were too exhausted to spend time looking at it. Plus it was now raining. 

The museum covered all aspects of WW2 with videos and photos and memorabilia, and did include information about local people who were part of the resistance. Their stories of bravery were impressive. We both just wished there had been more information about how their resistance impacted the end of the war. But it was a well done tribute to the local organizations.

Here's some photos of the Citadel. The museum didn't seem like an appropriate place to take photos.

It was pouring when we came out of the museum but we descended the hill carefully, and found a bus in town to take us to the train station. Our knees were really sore when we got home but big thanks to Tylenol and Aleve. We're good today.

Dinner was galettes at Crepitante, a popular and busy place.

And we loved this... the Duke's Palace lit up to support breast cancer research.

Tomorrow we leave Dijon. We've loved it here and would recommend it to anyone who is traveling in France. But now we're ready for the next location... L'Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue. It will take us three train rides to get there so it will be a long day. We'll continue the blog when we get settled there.

Interesting Shops, A Visit to Cite de Grastronomie, Musee Magnin, and a Bar

Tuesday was rainy so we grabbed umbrellas and planned to spend most of the day doing indoor activites. But first we wandered.

It's fun to discover different kinds of stores in new places. Here's one we found. I thought it was a great idea but Greg described it as creepy. Basically, it's a shop that takes a photo of your eyeball. Or you can bring in your dog, cat, kids... whatever. Then they make it into a piece of jewelry or an enlarged photo.

I'd love to take the grands here. Each one has different color eyes. Wouldn't that be a fun thing?

Another interesting and unique shop was a large store completely filled with freezer chests. They're all lined up around the walls of the store, and they contain frozen gourmet entrees, veggies, deserts, etc. Picture the frozen food section of Trader Joe's but multiply it by 50. There was a couple stocking up by buying bags of the stuff. For people who don't want to cook, this is a real solution.

Several years ago in Dijon, a beautiful new complex was built called the Cite International de la Gastronomie et du Vin. It was designed to showcase French cuisine and wine. It contained shops and restaurans and conducted cooking classes, wine tastings, and elaborate exhibitions. The locals didn't like it. I'm guessing they felt it took away business from the shops and restaurants in the city center, and it was clearly designed for tourists. I'd read that over the past year many shops and restaurants closed due to lack of business. And then two weeks ago, they all shut down. The exhibits remained, and so we walked over to check them out.

We walked through two of the exhibits... one about French cuisine in general and one about the history of Dijon. Both tried to be somewhat interactive but failed, and we were not at all impressed. It's too bad because the building is beautiful.

In the afternoon we visited another art museum, and I enjoyed this one even more that the one we visited a few days ago. Musee Magnin is housed in a 17th century mansion that was owned by art collectors who had quite the collection. 

The building was impressive and so was the art which, for the most part, was grouped according to theme. There was room with painting depicting volence and death, one with chubby babies, one with still lifes of food. And then there seemed to be a section of questionable acts of violence towards women. Here's a painting with a guy (who strongly resembles Rodney Dangerfield, right?) tying a rope around the wrists of a woman as other men passively look on.

And I don't even want to know what the two guys have in mind for this poor woman, especially the one with his face in her stomach.

But my favorite area was where the portraits were hung. Most of these were women, and I loved thinking about how they must have selected what to wear and how to pose and what it says about each one of them. Perhaps this woman told the artist to please make her waist as small as her neck.

And this woman might have overdone the hair accessories a bit.

But I was drawn to this one. I love the casual pose; it was so refreshing after all the formality of the others.

But the best by far is the one I'll call Exhausted Mother. 

For dinner we chose Monsieur Moutard, a cocktail bar in a 13th-century mansion. It's a beautiful building and entryway, and there is virtually no signage out front. You have to know it's there.

The inside is not as impressive as the outside, but we had some nice drinks and small plates for dinner. Food was really good.

And we saw this guy on our way to dinner in the window of an apartment building close to us. So cute.

A Church, a Ride along the Canal, and More Day Drinking

First, several friends have written asking about the protests here in France and if we feel safe. We absolutely do. It breaks my heart to see the damage and destriction in Paris and other larger cities, and I do hope that it all will be resolved soon. If things do ramp up again next weekend, we will be in a new location which is also a small town. So we are all good here.

Dijon is large enough that we are still are discovering new interesting places. Yesterday we went back to the church with all of the gargoyles, Notre-Dame Church. The inside is nice but it was the exterior that we found more interesting. Here's a picture of those gargoyles along with my favorite. Each one is different.

On the north side of the church is a small owl, the symbol of Dijon. The legend goes that if you rub it with your left hand a make a wish, it will be granted. The poor little guy has been rubbed so many times that it's hard to even recognize what it is.

Another exterior shot. Just a beautiful church with many rooflines and angles.

Behind the church is what I believe is the oldest structure in Dijon. It was built in 1464. Notice the size of the door. Random stranger used for scale.

In case anyone is wondering why G always has on a black vest.... it's because he brought two on the trip. One is lightweight, one heavier. Cold days he wears both at the same time.

Rain was predicted for several days this week so when the weather cleared in late morning, we rented some bikes and headed to the Burgundy Canal Trail. It's a beautiful trail running west of Dijon along the canals with locks along the way. We rode to Fleury-sur-Ouche, about 10 miles away. Had lunch there, and biked back. Perfect afternoon. Well, almost.

We passed a grove of these trees, and I have no idea what kind they are. Initially, I thought those greem balls were some kind of nest, but they are just some kind of foilage. Anyone recognize them?

When we picked up the bikes, we were told they didn't have any ebikes. Greg was fine riding a traditional bike but we were hoping to ride 20 miles so I said I'd prefer an ebike. Bad decision. The only one they could find was way too big/high for me and very heavy. I struggled to get on and off of it, and finally when we were just a few miles from home, I fell trying to get off. A man saw me fall and came over to help get the bike off of me, and Greg came running back to help. So darn heavy!! Fortunately, no photo of this. As I went down, I saw visions of the end of the vacation flash before my eyes. I also heard my doctor giving me my osteoporosis diagnosis. The good news, I just had a small scrape and a few bruises. A hot shower and a refreshing spritz and I was good as new! Whew!