Thursday, July 14
Today was one of those top-to-bottom glorious days in France. The day began with omelets and hash browns—OK, the pomme de terre with le petit déjeuner but they looked good at the Carrefour. It was then time to add a bit of culture to our Dijon stay. A quick walk across the street from our flat brought us to Le Palais des Ducs (Palace of the Dukes), the Capitale de la Bourgogne and its adjoining Musée des Beaux Arts. What a marvelous collection of artwork encompassing French and German artists from the 1400’s to current times and even an Egyptian collection. My favorites were the paintings and sculptures of Dijon-born François Rude.
A few hours of museum walking can make your feet sore, so it was time for a short bier break, some shopping, and a bit puzzlement over a group of workers setting up thousands of approximately 1’x3’ firebricks in very neat, evenly spaced rows throughout the center of town. They even made a pass through a fountain. Turns out they were building one of those giant domino falls and keeping true to our Dijon norm, we missed the sequential curplunking.
On Wednesday night, we spotted a place that looked ideal for tonight’s dinner, but when we arrived, a fellow in front of the place said “ferme.” It was closed. Plan B was to walk down few streets and see if we could find an alternative. I’ve developed what I call my 6 Rue Rule. Basically, in just about any ville in France, if you walk down no more than 6 streets you’ll find an acceptable restaurant. We’d exceed the six by one or two, but finally came across Restaurant au Buffon—a very unassuming, yet charming little spot that could seat 34 patrons on its 9 tables. On our entry, only one seat was occupied, obviously by a neighborhood resident. The menu was fairly simple but enticing. Laurel decided on an entrée of legumes, a wonderful casserole of roasted vegetable topped with a crispy cheese lattice, and a turkey breast scallop. I went with the crudities entree, a gorgeous cylinder of slaw, cabbage and cucumber all marinated in their own delicious sauces. For my plat, I opted for the beef with a blue cheese sauce. We topped this all with glace with a cassis sauce for dessert. The service was by our waiter/chef/proprietor was excellent; the food was outstanding. Restaurant au Buffon is the kind of place we’re always looking and the kind of place, I believe, that makes France France.
After dinner we were sooo stuffed, but found the energy to dash for the No. 3 bus and head for the lake and the delayed Bastille celebration fireworks. We were not the only ones with this idea. By the time we arrived at the lake, the bus was hot and we were packed like sardines. I think we were also skewing the demographics a bit. It seems most French, as well as tourist geezers decided this event was a bit too crowded to attend. Once off the bus, though, the air was sweet and cool and a short walk found us a fairly decent viewing spot on the lakeshore. I haven’t seen a live fireworks show in many years and this one was spectacular—well paced, incredible shells and a good 40 minutes in length. When the booming stopped, we decided to let a few our fellow French celebrants precede us on the public transportation and paused at the first bistro we saw for a couple Kronenbourgs and a half hour or so of watching snarled traffic and listening to honking horns.
Fine art, fine food and a fine celebration. A wonderful day in Dijon.