Roof-o!

In which Sid and Doris discover that Dijon is really very nice.

Over the years Sid and Doris have trundled up and down the east side of France quite a bit, on their way to rallies and skiing and tours of various sorts.  So this time we decided to see some of the towns that we have never really visited properly, and today’s destination was Dijon.

The local habit is to decorate the roofs with gaily coloured tiles, and so today’s car game was roof-o, with points for the first person to spot such a roof.

In between point scoring opportunities the road trundled scenically past the Rhone which was doing a good job of creating mist-on-the-water effect beloved of amateur photographers worldwide.  We’ll have a short pause so you can admire some random France photos…

(Did someone say Roof-o?  You get a point!) Dijon is in Burgundy, in fact it was the old capital of Burgundy. And the Dukes of B wanted to make the point that they were very very rich, so they spent money on their capital lavishly, creating some very fine buildings indeed.  The nice people in the Tourist Information Office have created a fine walk “in the footsteps of the owl” round the town, and thanks to our three-stop strategy, we got into town early enough to enjoy it.

The owl is a lucky stone owl on a street corner, and you are supposed to rub his tummy with your left hand for luck.  This means that both of Doris’s hands are now unwashable, as the right one was used to shake hands with Ari Vatenan and some tiny sparkles of rally magic might still be clinging to it.

Getting into a town at 4-ish is quite important.  On the rally the finishing time was generally around 6pm, and if you are going to fettle your GOB/GPCC then that doesn’t leave much time for town-visiting or indeed spa-luxuriating or garden-sitting.  In a twist on the classic T shirt: “Join an Endurance Rally.  Visit interesting towns.  Surround yourself with beautiful things.  And IGNORE them.”

So we had two extra luxurious hours and here are some more photos.

Modern-day Fagins extracting their substantial percentage from the day’s take.

A classic French aperitif called “Suze” which for some inexplicable reason we have never tried before, accompanied of course by a copy of this week’s Echappement.  Suze is bright yellow and looks like something the doctors might use to test kidney function, but it tastes very nice.

 A “Fenton” amplifier with real glass diodes, taken as a #virtualsouvenir for our engineer neighbour Sally Fenton.

A captain’s hat for use on Nereus (it’s ok Joe, this is also only a #virtualsouvenir).

And a cantilevered font cover of elegant beauty but debatable practicality.