A slightly more civilised look at Dijon

So, when we weren't dining with a nudist, what did we get up to in Dijon? Compared to that story, I've got to say the rest of the trip wasn't quite as exciting, in blogging terms. That doesn't mean we didn't have a great time though! There was a lot of good food and nice wine, a spot of retail therapy, and even a little bit of culture.

On Friday night, we headed out, accosted some guy on the street to tell us where the party was at, and went first to a bar where everyone was kind of dickish. First, as soon as we walked in, a group of 20ish year-olds immediately started whispering things in French about us to each other and giggling and going "Where is Brian?" (this is a famous French comedy routine about learning English - you can watch a short clip here with subtitles - it's quite funny, but it gets old hearing it every five seconds). One of the guys from the group came up to us outside and wanted to practice his English with us. He did actually turn out to be quite a nice guy, but we were rather cold at first and explained to him that, yeah, you're not necessarily in the mood to hand out free English lessons when his little friends were laughing and saying things presumably they thought we wouldn't understand the second we walked in the bar. Newsflash French people: sometimes those crazy foreigners actually do speak French!

Then later we were still outside, sitting on stools and a guy came up practically with his nose in my cleavage and goes "wow"! He then proceeded to try to explain, first in French and then in broken English, that he was admiring my boobs, with accompanying hand gestures. I found it more amusing than anything, he just kept going as though there was some sort of communication failure between us. You're staring at my boobs from a few inches away and drooling, dude I think I'd understand what you were getting at even if you were speaking Swahili...

So anyway, we left there and moved on to a club which turned out to be a lot of fun! Upstairs they had a live band and more of an all-ages feel, whereas downstairs was a club with a DJ which was mostly filled with early 20s tossers (god, getting old). I asked one guy to take a photo of us and he made such a fricking meal out of it, sighing and rolling his eyes like I'd asked him for a huge favour. And then he didn't even take it right (you have to hold the button down until it flashes, so many people don't actually succeed in taking the photo and then they don't get that it hasn't taken. Since this guy was being such a baby about it, in the end I just said it was fine. Actually, I may have said something along the lines of "geez, if it's that big of a deal then eff off". Whoops!) So we went back upstairs and got our dance on. Fun times!

Someone else was nice enough to take this one

On a medival Dijon street - those pretty patterned roofs in the background are characteristic of the area

Saturday was essentially taken up with much-needed restorative carb-loading at lunch and then shopping (yes, we bought mustard!), before the infamous dinner with Jérémie. Then on Sunday, again after a hearty lunch to soothe whatever wee hangovers we might have had (coq au vin, mmm), we finally got a spot of culture at the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts. This is fabulous, and it's free! Definitely recommended if you ever find yourself in Dijon. The girls had to leave after 45 minutes or so to start the drive back home, but I stayed for a couple of hours and thoroughly enjoyed it.

A bit of background - Dijon used to be home to the Dukes of Burgundy, who were pretty wealthy and powerful in the Middle Ages and the patrons of the arts. The Burgundy territories changed quite a lot over time, but they ruled over parts of the Low Countries at one point, so there are links to the artistic traditions in that part of the world. The museum is located in their ducal palace and filled with some fantastic medieval art (which I love, as we all know). Some highlights:

Ancient aliens didn't build the pyramids, Fraggle Rock did!

I love how adorably dopey zombie Jesus looks here. He's even standing on that poor guard

A chinesey-looking dragon

Vs. a mad sword-wielding dragon

Tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy. Tell me this isn't the most amazing thing you've seen today

Each statue of mourning monks around the base is different

Looks a lot like the photo before last, but it's not the same!

I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse #godfatherjesus

There were these two fabulous gold altarpieces opposite each other (photos below a bit of a mishmash I think)

I love medieval horses

I love how Jesus just kinda looks like he's having a bummer of a day, not going to his death. And check out that weird little dog to the right

Statues by local boy François Rude. This means there is a Rude Museum in Dijon (and I did actually pop in - it's also free!)

So pretty!

I don't think I would have ever put Dijon on my must-see list (we ended up there just by picking somewhere vaguely between Tours and Metz that none of us had ever visited), but it really was a great trip! Largely down to the good company, but I would definitely recommend it for a weekend if you get the chance.