Dijon

June 4, 2023

Dijon is the capital of Burgundy and another city that has charmed us. Could we stay here for six months some time in the future? Even though it's a smaller city, with a population of 150,000, it's a gem. Besides being the centre of a premier wine making area in France, it's got wonderful architecture and a vibrant medieval centre. We learned that Dijon has made a concerted effort in recent years to restore their 15thC timber-frame houses, many of them having been hidden behind exterior wall coverings for years. Maybe that helped to protect them as the old buildings' now newly exposed beams add so much depth and sense of history to the pedestrian areas of Dijon.

Can we really do justice to our descriptions and thoughts about a city with a one day visit? Probably not, but what we can say is that there is a lot crammed into this beautiful city and it is very much worth coming back to.

The Owl's Trail provides a self-guided walk of Dijon's major monuments. We picked up the booklet at the Tourist Bureau and started at the huge 13thC Notre Dame Church, closed to the general public on a Sunday morning. We visited the Saint-Étienne Church constructed in the 11thC and now the library. It was holding a writer's conference this weekend which was open to the public and would have been fun to join in, if we weren't on a mission to see and feel the pulse of the city in a day. At the back part of the church is the Rude Museum dedicated to the Dijon born sculptor, Francois Rude, who died in 1855. It had amazing pieces of Joan of Arc, Napoleon and Gaspard Monge (died 1818) mathematician and founder of the École Polytechnique and born in Beaune, and the key piece is a cast of the magnificent sculpture, Depart des Volontaires, the original which is on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Then it was on to the Museum des Beaux Arts housed in the 1787 former Dukes' Palace. The fully renovated museum displaying 1,500 works of art was inaugurated in 2019. It is worth the visit to Dijon alone to see the palace and its artwork!

It was well past lunchtime when we left the museum and crossed the enormous semi-circular square of Place de la Liberation but we were headed for Place Emile Zola which had been humming with people when we came into town last night. It was bustling with folks enjoying a leisurely Sunday brunch and we joined the crowd sheltered from the hot sun under umbrellas.

By the time we finished it was nearing 3pm and we slowly made our way home through Place Francois Rude with an old fashioned merry-go-round; past the Porte Guillaume, along the narrow Rues des Forges and Verrerie with their 15thC timber-framed houses. We were tired but happy with our day in Dijon.

Notre Dame Church. I think it looks a bit like the Doge's palace in Venice.

This courtyard of a former noble's home was used in the movie Cyrano.

The Opera House which unfortunately was not open to visit the inside.

Library and was the Saint Étienne Church

The paintings in this room had all been confiscated from private collections during the Revolution and distributed to museums for public display.

A peaceful moment at St. Bénigne Cathedral

The palace gates onto Place de la Liberation

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