When I first saw pictures of Dijon, I actually thought it was too good to be true. Is this the town from Beauty and the Beast? Is this the classic French town that I had never been to? Well, it was a small town, that is for sure. And one of the days I was there was on a Sunday, where the only thing open was a terrible coffee shop, a tea room, and the mustard museum. But let’s get to the good part first.
So I arrived really flipping early, like at nine in the morning! Johnny and I walked to our airbnb from the train station. It took about 25 minutes, like with luggage in hand. Crazy, right? Small town. We get to our airbnb and are brought into this beautiful cottage type house. 
We talked with our airbnb host and found a few cool places to head to that night. The first of which was Alchimia. This was a cool coffee shop/ bar. The bar tender/barista was very cool and very friendly.
We ordered an appetizer sampler and some drinks, then settled into a table near where a DJ was setting up. It was an environment that I don’t want to describe as high energy, but the energy could be what you wanted it to be. If you are in Dijon and you need a some ideas of what to do, I cannot recommend this place enough. It even had some cool art on the walls, and if you check out their Facebook page you can see what artists they are showing. Johnny and I felt totally comfortable relaxing there, but it seemed a show was about to start. So after finishing our apps and drinks, we went back out to find a place for dinner.
Oh and dinner? How did that go? Well we tried this one restaurant, I believe it was Italian, we walked in and asked for a table for TWO and the host said no. I think his exact words were “c’est complet.” I was a little confused at first because in America they usually just give you a time frame, like a 45 minute wait, but here it was just… nope. It did not bring our moods down. Instead we headed to another bar and ordered a nice charcuterie and cheese platter. It was incredible, and definitely filling enough that we weren’t bummed about not being in a real restaurant.
After that (same night, folks) we went out to this incredible wine bar, Bruno. The wines there. Guys, they were so incredible. Some wines there that I couldn’t even dream of purchasing they were so expensive. John and I were recommended wine by the owner who was manning the bar and he also served us a small plate of charcuterie to compliment the wines we tried. Right next to us, he and some other customers did a wine tasting with anchovies?? It was so cool to see the owner interact with customers that way.
The next day we headed out into the city to get coffee. We went to a cafe that I cannot remember the name of and I wouldn’t tell you if I did because it was terrible, like super yuck. We ended up going to a tea house instead, Comptoir des Colonies, (Alchimia was closed, but i bet if it was open it would be a great option!) and getting tea and some scones and croissants for breakfast. they had a great combination deal, so we ended up with so many breakfast bits at our table. This morning reminded me that not all places in France are as coffee forward as the bigger cities are. If you’re looking for another good place, La Maison Milliere was also recommended to us.
So in Dijon you kind of have to go try a lot of mustard. I ended actually liking some of the mustard there, I think one of the types had wasabi mixed into it? I’m totally not a mustard girl, but this place had great prices on mustard- and that is a sentence I never thought I would say! Like, I still find myself thinking about why I didn’t buy more mustard for friends and family. Silly me.
After the mustard museum, we set out to buy creme de cassis for my parents christmas present. Did you know that a Kir is a sparkling white wine and creme de cassis, and that it originated in Dijon? We went to Grain de Cassis, there were tons of sweets there I wanted to snatch up, but we limited ourselves to just one bottle of creme de cassis. It was a nice time in a small city, but it was also a short time.
Dijon, like I said before, was such a picturesque french city. I love looking back at it and seeing the buildings, the fountains, the owls everywhere. We headed out the next morning to Paris so look forward to my thoughts on Paris! Thanks guys! (:
Alyssa in France 