Dijon, France

Dijon, France, Wednesday (25/05/05)

We have spent the past two nights in Dijon, the home of the mustard and fine food, apres then...


Montreaux, Switzerland, Monday

There is nothing much to Montreaux, I spent the morning hunting for a camping store as we decided that we need a different cooker for making coffee (we have a fuel cooker which is not good for indoors). There are no camping stores in Montreaux, also the Piaggio dealer did not seem to have any Piaggio's.

To fill in the day we went to the Chateau de Chillon, which is a castle built on the lake side. That was pretty impressive and looks a lot bigger on the inside than the outside (thanks to crypts, cellars and prisons below ground).



Of course we could not leave Switzerland without having a Fondue. However, by now, I felt my blood was flowing with cheese after many quatre fromage pizza's, bagets and cheese etc. So the fondue was good but a bit of an effort.

Also of note, if you want a Swiss Army knife buy it in Australia, they are cheaper there.


Dijon, Tuesday

We left Switzerland via Vallorbe. No more high Swiss mountains, but from Montreaux to Dijon, we followed the lake, gazing up at terraced vineyards. Then into France we travelled through the greenist fields and had a very pleasant ride.

The only thing that went wrong was that we got caught out by the French lack of petrol facilities for foreigners (i.e. We had to back track because the town we went to only had French credit card automatic petrol machines). We just made it back to the previous town, my scooter cut out a few times and I free-wheeled as much as I could. On the bright side, we found a camping store in the process and got our cooker.

In Dijon everything was booked out, so we ended up in a hostel a few km's from town. We are booked here for 2 days. We walked into town and had some food there and a quick look around.


Dijon, Today

Breakfast at the hostel was from 7 to 8AM, so we missed that :) Had our own breakfast and I got a coupe (hair cut) and then headed into Dijon on the scooter. We stumbled across a walking trail around Dijon,with arrows to follow. So we did the walking tour seeing some pretty interesting sights. Dijon seems like a really nice place to live, a combination of French class and student crustiness (refer to photo of ferals swimming in the fountain).




Dijon is also fqmous for gargoyles

One of our wedding presents was money for a gourmet meal from Neil and Daphne. Guys, your money was well spent, it got us a 7 course degustation meal at the best resturant in Dijon, Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge . Since our meal was paid for, we washed it down with a AUS$160 bottle of wine and a couple of champagnes. To say the least the night was tres fantastic. Also, the service was great (i.e. Not snobby).