16 February 2012

To the land of Mustard

Dijon was halfway between Paris and Martigny so we decided to make a stop for a night on our drive home. Plus we wanted to see where the famous mustard came from. It was only about three hours drive from Paris and we didn't have to leave too early, so we had some more time to spend in Paris. We arrived in Dijon at night and since they were upgrading the rail system, our trusty navigator "tomtom" got a little lost. We drove around in circles and went up a few one way streets but eventually we arrived out the front of our hotel where we parked our little Panda for the night. We had booked a junior suite at the hotel since it seemed like the cheapest and best option for the four of us. It was great. We had to walk out the back of the hotel to a different building, wind up the rickety, old staircase (avoiding hitting our heads on the way up) and found ourselves in our own, quiet, multi-roomed suite. It was so cute and homely, I didn't want to leave.





There were a few head bashings throughout our visit because there were exposed beams and slanted ceilings. Plus we're all unnaturally tall (except Sarah) so we were bound to hit our heads at some stage.  We asked the concierge at the hotel for some suggestions for restaurants for dinner, he gave us a nice map of the city and pointed us in the direction of where the food was. It was a Sunday night so it was really quiet but it was fun navigating the small streets at night trying to find a nice place to rest our weary bodies. We eventually settled on an Italian restaurant since it looked the most lively out of the quiet restaurants in town. It was really nice.

Sarah's amazing salad.

The next morning we checked out of our suite and hunted the town for a nice place to have a typical french petit déjeuner. We liked the look of a tea house which had walls and walls of canisters of all the tea you could think of. They also had many, many varieties of coffee too which was rather exciting. We ordered our 'menu petit déjeuner' and chose our tea and coffee and delighted when the fare arrived. Baskets of fresh croissants, bread, butter, jam, tea, coffee and orange juice. Breakfast is my favourite type of food and I always get excited when I'm met with a good one.

With satisfied tummies we set off to explore Dijon. It was rather quiet on a Monday morning. Most shops didn't open until after lunch time or some not at all. But it was still a lovely city to explore. Luckily there were some stores open so we could admire the local specialities - mainly mustard.











Dijon was rather lovely place to stop along the way. It's hard not to like European cities. They're always so pretty and a vast difference to cities in Australia. And of course I bought some mustard. How could I not?

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