Exploring eastern France by train ...

I'm in Strasbourg!  Being spoilt rotten by the gorgeous duo, Ralf and Juergen (and Wolfgang on Sunday) and having a lot of fun exploring this fantastic city.  In fact, I've done so much that Strasbourg deserves a post all of its own.  So watch this space ...

... but let's catch you up on what happened after Saumur.  My first stop was Dijon.  What a place!  It was a delight ... from the old buildings with exposed beams and colourful tiled roofs to the amazing churches and palaces, the art and culture to the vibrant and youthful party scene.  Markets and high-end dress shops, bars and chocolate creations, food and more glorious food.  Not to mention the mustard!

My Airbnb was virtually next door to the huge covered market, where you could buy virtually anything and everything.

And when the market wasn't on, they opened the doors anyway, for some cool music, plates of charcuterie and cheese, and perhaps a local chardonnay.

Cheese, glorious cheese!

The streets of Dijon were constantly surprising me ... every time I found a new street or alley, there would be magnificent buildings.

I discovered this delightful stone staircase and balcony after crawling through a narrow space between two buildings.

How's this for a beautiful Art Nouveau gem?  Love the parasols!

I went to the Dijon Fine Art Gallery ... and discovered Francois Pompon, a sculptor who made all sorts of animals, moulding their silhouettes into smooth, stylized and polished forms.  When he was 67 he made a huge polar bear (currently in Paris) but the gallery had quite a few of his smaller pieces.

Semper Virens, the face-tree created by Gloria Friedmann

In the museum devoted to the works of Francois Rude, there was this immense plaster cast of his sculpture The Marseillaise which is on the Arc de Triomphe

While I was wandering around the city, I came upon a lovely cathedral where I sat in the cool and calm and listened to the organist practise for a concert.  Yes please, I said, so a couple of days later I put on my glad rags (ha ha - I mean clean t-shirt) and went to the concert.  The organist was a bit hard to understand because (a) he spoke French and (b) he kept forgetting to hold the microphone up to his mouth.  But his music was lovely.  A Bach prelude and fugue.  Some of Saint Saen's Carnival of the Animals.  And quite a few things that I didn't recognise.  It was very entertaining and the 20 or so people in the huge cathedral seemed to enjoy it too. 

One day, I decided to have a day in Beune - a lovely little town near Dijon.  Unfortunately, I chose a very hot day to do so and walking around wasn't really that pleasant.  But I did enjoy the sweaty stroll along the walls of the town, looking down on the beautiful roofs.

After 5 days in Dijon, it was time to leave.  I was quite sad to go since I was feeling quite at home.  The lady in the greengrocers would greet me every morning and start putting apricots in a bag for me.  I'd tried so many cheeses from the fromagerie that Nathalie and I were on first name terms.  And the waiters knew me at the bar opposite.  Home, indeed!  But time to move on and I had the (deluded) idea that it might be cooler near the Alps.  So I went to Grenoble.

The bubbles descending over my little Airbnb

Grenoble would be a great place to go if (a) it wasn't 40 degrees, (b) if you had a car and (c) if your accommodation had hot water.  It was HOT!  And I found out that the public transport didn't really work in summer - it was more designed for the winter ski tourists.  And as for the hot water ... well, I was used to cold showers after Nepal (and it was hot) so it really didn't bother me.  I went up in the bubbles (the cable car) to the Bastille, which was such a frightening experience (the floor was see-through!!!!!) that I walked back down. The views from the Bastille were superb although I couldn't quite see as far as Mont Blanc due to the heat haze.

Surprisingly, Grenoble was full of Irish pubs!  I had counted 5 before I succumbed and bought a Guinness.

Grenoble railway station - this was such a common sight in public areas in France.  

I still had a couple of days before I was due in Strasbourg so I decided to visit Besancon, a sweet little town which had a time museum and some lovely old buildings.

 The time museum was a bit of a dud for me because everything was in French and so I only understand a small part of it.  But ... it had a clock based on Foucault's Pendulum ... very cool!

The Man and the Child ... a cool statue near the railway station

The patron saints of Besancon ... not very lucky evidently.

Flammekueche ... an Alsace delight!  NOT a pizza.

But it was time to go to Strasbourg ...