Dijon - Sans Moutarde

Last Saturday, on my trip to Burgundy, we arrived in Dijon at night, and ended up wandering around the streets in the rain. The former ducal palace is lit up at night, and the plaza in front of it had fountains with lights that change color and intensity. The next day we went up in the tower, which dates from the 15th century. The semicircular design of the plaza was by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, in the 17th century. It was pretty foggy, so we couldn't see much past the buildings immediately around us, but it was a pretty nice tower, anyway.




A large part of the palace itself was made into a fine arts museum, of which the most famous room is the Salle des Gardes. There are three tombs with recumbent figures, John the Fearless with Margaret of Bavaria, and Philip the Bold, as well Burgundian tapestries and altarpieces.




When I visited there was an exhibition of movie costumes going on, dispersed throughout the museum. Most were gorgeous robes and dresses from French period films which I'd never seen, but they chose their most famous gallery for the display of a couple costumes from Harry Potter. Nice.



Dijon has many beautiful churches, the most famous of which is Eglise Notre Dame, only because it is right on the tourist circuit marked on the sidewalk by arrows and an owl logo. At the church, the marked path takes you to an owl sculpted into the side of the church, and the legend is that, upon touching this owl, one can make a wish and it will come true. Apparently, a lot of people have tried it, because that poor owl was pretty worn down.




Although Notre Dame is the most famous church in Dijon, it is not the main cathedral, which is the Cathedrale St.-Benigne. My camera died, so I don't have any photos, but the most interesting aspect of the church is actually what is now underground. There is ongoing archeological excavation of the site and a collection of artifacts, some paleolithic from the sources of the Seine in Burgundy. Because the original foundations of the abbey there date from 1000 AD, they are now underground due to the construction and accumulation of earth around it . The crypt of the cathedral is even older, and features a rotunda of three circles of pillars, echoing the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, a type of rotunda of which only 8 are known in the world.

When you say Dijon, everybody thinks of mustard, but now I will always think of the treasures of Christian religious art there. I didn't have any really special food in Dijon, but I suppose a blog entry about traveling to Burgundy would not be complete without someone eating Escargots de Bourgogne, so I'll show you when I ate them (clumsily) in Paris. I didn't have any in Dijon because I wasn't hungry after my enormous lunch in Vezelay and spending the large part of the day sitting on a bus.




The best thing about eating escargot has to be the rich sauce of parsley and melted butter, which is probably a magic sauce that might make anything taste good. Although escargot are offered to tourists all over the place, I think it pays to go to a nice place because snails can turn tough when they're not cooked right, or maybe if they're not fresh. At Le Bousquet, on Avenue Bousquet, 7eme arrondisement near the Eiffel Tower, they were delicious.

Chablis and Vézelay

Besides being the wine capital of lower Burgundy, Chablis has its origins as a medieval village. There are even some houses remaining from the middle ages, and two round towers reconstructed in 1778 to replace those of the original fortifications around the city, built in the 1400's. The "Porte Noël":


During the 9th century, monks from St. Martin-des-Tours, fleeing the Norman invaders, brought their relics of St. Martin to Chablis, and they were eventually placed in the Eglise Saint Martin, which was then was reconstructed beginning in the 13th century. Above the door on the south side, you can see a cross decorated with fleur-de-lis and animals, and the door itself is covered with horseshoes and strap hinges from the 13th century. These were brought by pilgrims as offerings to St. Martin, at that time the patron saint of horsemen.

Our next stop was the gorgeous hilltop town of Vézelay. In the 12th century, it was a very important religious and commercial hub, as the starting point for one of the pilgrimage routes from France to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. From the abbey at Vézelay, St Bernard preached the call for the Crusade, with King Louis VII among the parishioners. Later, King Philippe-Auguste and Richard the Lionhearted met here before going on the Third Crusade. So, it's very apparent that the town was a major religious center, and therefore fitting that the basilica at the summit was enormous and richly decorated. Of course, the Huguenots and the Revolution disposed of a lot of the beautiful carvings and sculptures, but what remained was carefully restored in the 19th century, especially the architecture and the interior doorways and pillars.


In fact, when I entered the basilica, I was reminded a little of the feeling I had when going into the St. Peters in Vatican City, especially when I saw the huge doors from the narthex to the nave:


The tympanum of this doorway is really stunning, picturing Christ enthroned, with his apostles around him, and people of every sort being called, below Jesus and to the upper left and right, the overall message of the work being that the word of God is intended for the whole world.

The crypt houses a piece of a relic from Mary-Magdalene, although our guide emphasized to us that relics are more of a matter of faith than of the physical world.



That didn't stop someone from stealing another of the church's relics of Mary Magdalene, just three years ago. I guess that means the worshippers will have that much more faith.



I had a delicious and very reasonably priced (entree, plat, dessert; 13,5 € ) lunch at a restaurant in Vézelay called Les Glycines, which means The Wisterias. The terrace is indeed covered in wisterias, but they bloom in the spring, so it was just greenery for us. The portions were hearty, and the piece of local Charolais beef that I had was very flavorful and juicy, crowned with a rich, buttery 'Morvan-style' sauce. No one in my group had space in their stomach for the dessert of tarte aux pommes , so we took it to go. When we finally got around to eating it, we found unexpected delight in a creamy almond paste layer hiding under the apples. Yum! Yay for French food outside of Paris!

Last weekend, I went to Burgundy with the Club International des Jeunes a Paris, a non-profit organization that runs activities and excursions all the time, focussed on student-budget activities. We (50 or so of us) went by bus from Paris Saturday morning. As much as I didn't like having to sit in the bus for so long, I had a great time and saw an amazing amount in such a short time.
Our first stop was for a wine tasting in Chablis. I think I had never even tasted Chablis before, and I was very pleased with it's dry, herbal nature. Chablis comes in four appelations: Petit Chablis, grown on the peaks of the hills surround the Serein river valley, Chablis, grown further down the slopes and accounting for the majority of the production, Premier Cru Chablis, grown in areas with south and west exposure, and therefore more protected during the winter, and Grand Cru Chablis, grown on 100 hectares very close to the river, on its north bank. Chablis is made entirely from Chardonnay grapes, and aged in stainless steel barrels, and only very rarely for a short time in oak just for a hint of oakiness. I'm really tempted to go back to Chablis because the producers are located right in the town, and my interested was really piqued to visit them, especially for the Chablis wine festival this weekend.

Chablis is situated right on the river, where you can see the old wash-house (lavoir):



Our degustation was at the Cave des Connaisseurs: