L'Espiguette; Our Last Evening in Dijon

Menu 20 Euro

We decided to eat out our last evening in Dijon.  With all the local fresh foods, we usually cook for ourselves. but this being Burgundy, we wanted to try some of the local cuisine.  Walking down the main street from our apartment, we read all the menu boards in front of the restaurants.  This one sounded the best and the prices were right!  They offered three menus:  a special of the day at 18 euro, the 20 euro and the 29 euro.  Each had a different choice of dishes, but we liked the 20 euro choices the best.  (DUCK!)

Bill's Entre: Salad Landaise Geisers, Magret de Carnard

Mary's entre: Crustillant de Chevre Chaude et Chutney aux Fruits

We started with a kir, one of our favorite aperitifs.  We were too busy making our choices and talking to remember to take pictures of them.  They were delicious!

We had the same plat:  Parmentier de Canard aux Champigenons

Cote de Rhone wine, 2010

The restaurant had two people working that we could see;  our server, a young woman, and the chef, who came out when our entres were served to wish us "Bon Apetit!"  We wondered if they weren't husband and wife, since the ages were comparable and they both did a bit of everything.  

Bill's dessert:  Creme Bruille, the classic French dessert.

Mary's dessert: Profiterroles, ice cream in a puff pasty with whipped cream and chocolate sauce that is almost like a pudding.  YUM!

If you are ever in Dijon, we highly recommend this wonderful restaurant.  L'Espiguette, 65 Rue Jeannin, 21000 Dijon   Tel. 03.80.66.15.82

Convent des Benardines; Home to Two Musees

The blue dome of the convent. The museum of religious art is here.

The cloisters are built around a courtyard.  The building is home to the Museum of Burgundy Life.

There are two museums in the former buildings of the Convent des Benardines.  One is religious art of Burgundy, which we didn't find very interesting, you can only look at so many silver chalices,   The second, is the museum of Life in Burgundy, which is both interesting and fun.  The later was started in 1868, as a way to preserve the history of local life.

The wax figures are incredibly beautiful and lifelike.

A bride on her wedding day.

An elegantly dressed gentleman.

The first section has displays which were from when the museum started in the 1860's.  The mannequins are wax figures with movable wooden hands.  All the clothing and furniture is authentic, but have been put into new displays to freshen them.  The amount of information is incredible.  They really are trying to save the past for the future.

The family sitting in their parlor.

Food preparation in a well stocked kitchen.

The upper floor has stores that were once on the streets of Dijon.  When the owners passed, the entire contents were either donated or purchased to be used in the museum.  Each store has the owners listed, the dates they were in business, their address, and some personal information about them and their business.

The Pharmacy

The Toy Store

The Toy store has an interesting story.  When the owner returned home for WWI, he found that metal and plastic toys had taken over the wooden toys in both popularity and price.  So, he moved his stock of handmade wooden toys into a back room and restocked with the new items.  He would occasionally sell an old style toy, but only if the purchaser was extremely interested.  Now, his wonderful toys are here for all to appreciate.

The Furriers, again a husband and wife team.  There is a video of an interview with the wife when she visited the exhibit for it's opening. 

The Laundry was run by a mother and daughter.

The Clock Maker.  The mechanism to the left is from a church clock made in 1605.

The Butcher

 The butcher shop was owned by a husband and wife.  When the husband went to war during WWI, the wife took on all the jobs of the butcher.  When he returned, she went back to being the wrapper and cashier. He died before her, so she went back to being the butcher, until the day came that she could no longer raise the heavy metal door.  She sold the shop that very day and retired.  She was 93.

A wig from the Hair Dressers window.  When he moved to a new shop, he put all his old things up in the attic.  He daughters donated it upon his death, 50 years later.

After the shops, there are static displays of famous men from Dijon, scientific instruments from the College of Physics at Dijon University and local products.  It was a very enjoyable and informative three hours!

Tour Philippe le Bon

View down the stairs.

We first saw the ad for climbing the tower of Philip the Good in our gite, along with lots of other information on things to do and see in Dijon.  Now, we always enjoy looking at the world from on high, and the only warnings were for pregnant women or people with limited mobility, since it has 316 steps up.  We don't fall into either of those categories, so.....

The first place we stopped had this beautiful vaulted ceiling.

View out the stained glass window.

Looking down on the Place de la Liberation.

View across the town.

Cathedral St Benigne shows really well.

Cathedral St Michel, which is hard to see close up.

The tower is part of the Dukes of Burgundy's palace.  It was never a fortification, but a residence.  The stairs were the ones used by the owners to get to their apartments in the palace.  So, they are easy to walk up and down, not those tortuous , uneven, medieval stairs we have so often climbed.  Our tour guide was a young woman who spoke both French and English.  She would talk to all the others, then give us the tour.

Another, more subtle, decorated tile roof.

While this looks like part of a roof, it is actually the original wall of the castrum built by the Romans.  Philip used it as the base for his tower.  Recycling strikes again.

There were two young women on the tour who were Americans.  They were living in Dijon and working as teaching assistants in the school, helping the students to learn English.  Of course, they were both fluent in French.  One was from Virginia, while the other was from Missouri, but went to school at SMU in Texas.  It is a small world after all.

After all those stairs, a refreshing Kir to celebrate.

Jacquemart

The clock on top of Notre Dame in Dijon is known as Jacquemart.  The duke, Philip de Hardi, took the clock as war loot in 1382 from Courtrai, now Belgium.  He gave it to the people of Dijon in 1383, as a thank you for their help in the Flanders war.  In the 17th century, people joked about poor Jacquemart's bachelor status, so in 1651, a companion was added for him: Jacqueline.  In 1714, people made fun of their infertility, so a little Jacquelinet was made for them, who was joined in 1884 by Jacquelinette, to mark every quarter of an hour with him.  Thanks to The Owl's Trail from the Office of Tourism for this information.

Cathedral St Benigne

The present gothic church which replaced the one that collapsed in 1280..

St Benigne's cathedral is dedicated to the first local martyr whose 2nd century sarcophagus' base is in the crpyt.  I'm not sure what St Benigne did to become a saint, but his death was apparently spectacular.  Who ever it was that killed him, put two lances through him from side to side, bottom to top.  Then they put an iron bar down into the top of his skull.  They also took his fingers and stretched them out until they resemble ET's, from the movie.

Saint Benigne looks amazingly calm considering all that has been done to him.  Maybe that is why he is a saint.

The decorated tile roof, a Dijon specialty.  

Carving over the entry doorway.

The church building has been cleaned over the past few years, with only one small section left to be finished.  They were working on it the day we visited, so the air inside the church was filled with fine dust particles.  Someone is going to have a big job dusting everything when they are finished on the outside.

Looking toward the nave.

This side alter is done in the same colors as St Chapelle in Paris.  Two of the windows are stained glass, but the two which have inside walls have the stained glass painted on the wall, instead of being glass.

The organ comes with an angel on top of each wood carving.  They are playing an array of instruments to liven up the music.  

This building was badly damaged during the revolution with the rotunda partially collapsed.  The underground level was preserved, but only because it was  filled in.  In 1860, excavations were started to return it into use.  There is still work to be done, but who knows when or if it will happen.

The stairs down into the crypt.  

The large stone is all that remains of the sarcophagus of Saint Benigne.

When the mortuary chapel was originally built in Gallo-Roman times, it was at street level.  Over the centuries, like everything else, it was swallowed by the refuse of the city and is now totally buried.

Looking toward the mortuary chapel.

The undergound storey of the romanesque rotunda.

Light coming into the rotunda from above. The rotunda was built in 1002-1005.  

Going in to the crypt costs 2 euro each.  We were glad we paid to see it.  This is probably the best preserved crypt we've seen besides the one in St Denis in Paris.  The acoustics were excellent, as I did my usual singing to check them out.

Vendors on the Outside of Les Halles

Beautiful pots of blooming plants.

Bouquets ready for your home.

On the outside of Les Halles are vendors who are ready to sell you most anything you can think of, including some food products.   The rows of flower stalls are beautiful.  There are blooming plants, cut flowers and even silk flowers that look very real.

A different type of mushroom than the little white ones in the styrofoam boxes at Safeway.

Another type of mushroom.

This is the season for mushrooms.  The displays are piled high, some are reasonably priced, while others are, to our untrained pallet, outrageous.  The locals look at them, smell them, and finally make their selections.

Peppers by the bag full.

Display of root vegetables, with the black radishes front and center.

When you have had your fill of foods, it's time for other shopping.  The market has clothing to dress you from the skin out.  There are sellers of sewing goods, upholstery, furniture refinisher and rebuilders, leather goods, shoes, and on and on.

Bought too much?  Time for a new shopping basket.

Boots to keep you warm and dry during the wet winter; or to be tres chic.

We always want to buy, but the reality of getting it into our suitcases to go home, prevent us.  Oh, and maybe that little thing called money.  It doesn't matter if we buy or not, going the market is still one of our favorite things to do.

No French market is complete without a linen seller.