The Wandering Mushroom: owltour

France Days 16 and 17 - Discover Dijon Part 3

I have one last fairly innane story, not related to Dijon, that I wanted to share. I ended up spending my last night not in the Paris airport but at my friend's AirBNB apartment. I had to take the RER train into the airport from Musée d'Orsay. For some reason, my credit card which had worked in the machine the previous night was not walking this very night. It was 6.30am and there was one shop in the train station and the guy claimed he had no coins (machine only takes coins) and he had no credit card to help me purchase my ticket, but he told me that I could just walk into the gates because the door was unlocked and it was too early to have a ticket police come catch me. So I was desperate, and that's what I did. When I got to the airport, I needed a ticket to exit, but I saw these people who I think are employees going through this different turnstile, and two of them went into this booth-like thing at the same time, and then another gate would open to let them out. There were only two people left, and I really did not know what was going on, so I crammed in with them, and they looked at me like I was mad or weird. Bottom line is I made it out and my wonderful luck throughout my French adventure continued - no fines, no trouble, no having to cry and lie to ticket folks.

Without further ado, here is the last part of the Owl Walking Tour.

16. Mairie or mayor's office

17. Place de la Libération - beautiful large square

18. Palais de Justice

19. Place St-Fiacre - now I'm not sure whether this was intended to be in the tour but I did not see anything around. It was not particularly special.

20. Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne

21. Église Saint-Philibert de Dijon

22. Cathédrale Saint-Bénigne de Dijon

Other random things around.

a. I wanted this champagne Magnum ice cream and had to hunt all around town to get it and was finally successful. It was shiny silver! Did not love the champagne taste that much but overall ice cream makes one happy! :-)

b. I went running in a less touristy part of Dijon outside the main city center on a path called Promenade de l'Ouche or coulée verte which took me out to Lake Kir. Also passed by Moses Well which is supposed to be famous. I thought this was pretty and wanted to share.

c. Cute owl toy!

d. Lastly, wanted to share some wine wisdom from a placemat. The picture is crooked but I've been walking and waiting and sitting trains for over a day straight (actually for over 2 weeks) and am tired so it will have to do.

Well, this marks the end of the Mushroom's great French adventure! I'm excited to be home for a while, but also contemplating the next one. :-) Au revoir, la France!

France Days 16 and 17 - Discover Dijon Part 2

Here is a continuation of the Owl Walking Tour.

6. Place François-Rude

7. Hôtel Particuliers on rue des Forges - Hôtel Aubriot, Maison Malliard and Hôtel Chambelian

8. Notre Dame church

9. Owl - you are supposed to rub it with your left hand for good luck. I initially did it with my right and was going to leave with a smug look on my face, but this girl came up to me and told me to do with with my other hand.

10. Maison Millière - there was some Depardieu movie filmed here, and on top of the roof of this place is a cat and an owl

11. Hôtel de Vogüe

12. Grand Théâtre/Opéra de Dijon - this is the one with no owl. :-( I'm also not positive I was looking at the right thing. So there.

13. Musée des Beaux-Arts

14. Cuisines Ducales

15. Cour d'honneur

Last one to come.

France Days 16 and 17 - Discover Dijon Part 1

I am very mixed about how I feel that my very long French adventure is coming to an end. On one hand I have these 4 damned bottles of wine I have to lug around with me that I will be supremely happy to get rid of. A better reason is that I also have been away for more than 2 weeks, I miss my home, my shower, my laundry, my knowledge that all the surfaces in my house are clean and disinfected, and the list goes on and on. On the other hand, I've had a grand ol' time, my French is better than it has ever been, I've visited some beautiful cities and done some fabulous things, had some crazy adventures, spent some good quality time with myself achieving my goals, and I will be sad that this has to end.

I was in Dijon for a day, which was supposed to be my last stop, which made me very sad. However, I found out that a dear friend was in Paris and since I was passing through Paris anyway I met up with her! What chance life brings. That was a nice conclusion to the trip and it gave me some closure that I ultimately have a very happy life in SF and it is time to go back!

In Dijon, we stayed at Kyriad Hotel Dijon Gare, which was literally right across the street from the train station, and super duper convenient. The room was well laid out to accommodate 2 single beds. Tripadvisor people kept complaining it was small, but what were they expecting? The hotel had a tiny gym and a very psychedelic pool, and the room had dimmers. Very high tech.

I did the Owl Walking Tour while in Dijon. You can get a city map with the route, but have to pay 3.50 € which I did not want to, so I'm not so sure all my pictures and descriptions are correct. I managed to get a picture of all the owls except for one too so I'm quite proud of myself. Altogether there were 22 stops (a few others on extra routes they added which I did not follow) and you follow owl arrows on the ground. Here are the first few.

1. Place Darcy/Jardin Darcy - there's this cute bear sculpture there and I got one of it in the day and night. :-)