This morning we took the train from Paris to Dijon. Then we took a 10-minute taxi ride from the train station to an apartment we had reserved. We met the owners — a nice couple who live in one of the other apartments in the building. They’ve just given us the grand tour of our Dijon apartment — our home for the next four days.
Our apartment is one of several in a 16th century building. Whoa… someone built this place something like 500 years ago. (I hope they’ve kept the place up!). The big red doors where the taxi dropped us off lead into a courtyard. A variety of little English cars were parked in garage spaces around the courtyard. Looks like maybe someone around here might be something of a car collector.
The Grand Tour
The four of us walked across the courtyard and entered the apartment we’d reserved. The first thing that struck us when we went inside was a large living room. It had dark wooden floors and tall windows in that classic French style.
The wife of the husband-and-wife team is an artist, and it shows in the living room’s eclectic decor. We weren’t accustomed to living in such an artsy abode, but that’s part of the fun. The room had a wonderful feel.
We walked down a short hall to the bedroom that had lots of special touches. There were some large pieces of art on the walls. A multi-colored chandelier hung from the ceiling. Compared to our place back home, it was kind of wild, but everything worked well together. We liked it immediately.
There were two bathrooms. The master bath, off the bedroom, had a big stone “sink” that was clearly from a different age. It was maybe two by four feet across and just a few inches deep. Never seen anything like it before.
The shower was an open area lined with stone. The plumbing set-up allowed one to have a regular shower or a shower that was like standing out in the rain. Neat. The owners have done a great job of incorporating the old and the new.
We left the bedroom, walked back down the hall, and entered the kitchen. It was modern, with dramatic red lacquered cabinets. The drainboards were some kind of gray/black material, which was interesting. (Soapstone, maybe?).
We looked inside the kitchen drawers. Wow. We found towels, plates, silverware, gadgets, gizmo’s, and all kinds of kitchen stuff. They had really equipped this place well. (We had what we needed in the Paris apartment, so we didn’t know what we were missing until now).
A compact combination clothes washer and dryer resided under the kitchen counter. Never seen one of those before. There was a Nespresso coffee maker and a bunch of little espresso coffee pods to try out. (I would learn to love this little machine!).
The kitchen window looked out onto a private courtyard that belonged only to this apartment. No one else had access to it, or could even see into it. All in all, this was a fantastic place. The pictures we’d seen of it on the internet didn’t quite do it justice. Gee… I wonder if we’d be able to stay here longer somehow?
First Look at Dijon
We had an easy travel day on the train, so after the grand tour, we unpacked and headed right out to explore Dijon. Our apartment building was in the center of the historic part of town, so the buildings all around were old and interesting. The one right across the street was particularly wild-looking and spooky.
Dijon has a small-town feel. We felt like we could start walking in any direction without worrying about getting lost. And in the area that we’re in, many streets are pedestrian-only, so that was nice, too.
We started off down the curvy little street in front of our building. It was paved with rectangular stones. By the look of them, someone had put those stones down a loooong time ago. We love walking around in the historic sections of European towns. It always looks as if each building has a story to tell.
We hadn’t gone very far when it started to look like our street was coming to a dead end. On closer inspection, though, the “dead end” turned out to be a dark opening. It was a tunnel. Ooooo. Interesting. We went to check it out.
When we were about halfway through, we could start to see that something really BIG was on the other side. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were about to stumble onto the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. Neat!
To be continued…
