Return to Dijon

Well, today we went to Dijon which is the place we started from in Burgundy and approximately 25 years since our last visit. Doesn't sound all that exciting but getting out of the city on Saturday was totally traumatic. Why, I hear you ask? Driving a strange car on the wrong side of the road is problematic enough but add to that the road works going on in central Dijon and particularly around the station, where we picked up the car and you have a recipe for trauma. We must have driven around in circles at least three times with the GPS giving very patient instruction which kept leading us back to the station. Our GPS lady just wasn't up to date with the road works! In the end we turned her off and followed the road deviation signs and had no further trouble. So, today we went back, in fear and trepidation but it was a breeze!
The cause of all these road works is simple. Dijon is building a tram network throughout the inner parts of the city and every tourist who goes there seems to be upset by this activity. You only have to read the travel blogs for Dijon to see the hesitation that people express about going there.
Dijon is a medieval city and has some remarkably old buildings and some that are full of fun. There's one with a cat on the roof, not a real cat, but it looks real until, if you watch it for a while, you note that it doesn't move. Just as well as it's on the very edge of a ridge and looks as though it will either leap or fall but it does neither.
The cathedral building was begun in the late 1400's and consecrated in about 1529. The churches we looked at were very imposing on the outside but relatively small and oppressive inside.
We followed a tourist walk, called the route of the owl, in reverse, which led us passed most of the interesting public buildings including the Palais des ducs et des etats de Bourgogne and the hotel de vogue. We also walked passed les halles which is the market but which was finished for the day by the time we arrived. Fortunately we have another day there on Saturday, our last full day in France.

We concluded our trip home with a close up look at the only chateau classified as grand cru in cote de Beaune, south of our village, Corton Andre, and completion of our drive through back lanes to our cottage.