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.