2003, Day Four, Dijon

Day four  5^th June

Up early, as we are off to Dijon, this should be simple, back on to the A31 and stay on it all the way, although we will have to go through the city.  I decide we will turn off the A31 onto the N74 to enter Dijon from the north onto the ring road west, the A31 is a toll road so this should also save us some money anyway. 

We can’t find anywhere to empty the dirty water from the van and it’s about full (it holds about 80 litres this is 0.8 tonne, a bit heavy), the toilet is also full and the clean water tank is about empty.

DIJON CAMPING  DU LAC 3 boulevard Chanoine Kir 21000 Dijon Web Site

The drive to Dijon is done at a leisurely pace there is no rush after all, we exit the A31 and pay the €14 toll, the N74 is a long straight road and again is done at a leisurely pace.  As the road enters the city, it gets a bit mad but we have the directions and just follow the signs for the A38, this will take us very close to the campsite, where there should be campsite signs.  The caravan club book directions mentions going under a 3.0 meter bridge, to access the site, the van is 3.07 meters.  Just before the campsite we come across the campsite signposts, we follow these and turn the corner to be confronted by the bridge.  There is no height sign but it looks very low, we stop.  Dot gets out to watch as I edge forward, she tells me that it looks higher on the right, the side we are on, so I keep going, the van scrapes through, luckily though not literally.  

The campsite is just on the other side of the bridge, we pull up in the parking space for new arrivals and walk over to reception, witch is closed for the afternoon break.  It’s 12:15 and reception does not reopen until 14:30, we use the time to our best advantage.  First we have a walk around the site and pick out a pitch.  Next, as there is a motorhome service point next to where we are parked,  we empty all of our dirty water, including the toilet and fill up with fresh water.  After that we brew up and have lunch, just as we are finishing lunch a German caravan and a Dutch motorhome turn up, the time now about 13:45.  The German walks over to reception, reads the closed for lunch notice on the door and starts ringing the doorbell.  Now the sign on the doorbell states that it is for use only in an emergence, obviously him getting on the site is an emergency, as the warden comes out and opens the office for him.  In my humble opinion the reason the German thinks he can do this is, that it works, if it didn’t he wouldn’t do it would he?  My point is don’t put out closed signs, if your not closed as soon as some impatient person starts to bother you.  Anyway I jump out of the van and get behind him in the queue, this seems to upset the Dutch lady who had started heading towards reception a soon as the German got in but she wasn’t as nippy as me. 

Now this warden is the one that, on the phone said the office was closed, so the tourist office had booked for me, I thought here goes “sorry sir we only have this small, dark, wet, plot behind the toilets” but I was wrong he and his wife (who could speak English) were friendly and I got the pitch Dot and I had picked out earlier.  When I pull up on our pitch and stop the van, Dot hands me a cup of tea, the one I been drinking when the German showed up and it is still warm. 

As it was still only early in the afternoon we decided to walk into town, about 1.5 kilometres.  We ask in reception for a map and the wardens wife suggests walking by the river, rather than the road, she draws a red line on the map for us to follow (how did she know we follow red lines?).  The walk by the river is quite nice but soon we have to head into town, through a rather dull high-rise area, then under the railway, on in to the older part of town.  Now this is what we came to see lots of old buildings with wooden beams and old ornate churches. 

 

We wander round the shops for a while and then stop to have a beer (it is very hot again, this is becoming a wonderful excuse), Dot who works in a chemist shop (so would notice these things), points out the large number of pharmacies (the shops with green flashing crosses outside).  We continue our walk and Dot is right, there are pharmacies everywhere, why would you need this many, are the French hypochondriacs?  

As we approach one of the main squares, there are quite a lot of police about, then there is a lot of noise and smoke, then a lot of people marching.  It is a march by striking workers, protesting about changes to their pensions, they have flags, whistles, megaphones and the obligatory red flares, hence the smoke.  It is while avoiding this demonstration we find a church whose façade is covered in row after row of ornate gargoyles and a mustard shop that is selling wine and mustard at prices only the Americans could afford.  During the rest of the afternoon, these marchers will suddenly appear from side streets and around corners wherever we are handing out leaflets as they go.  Later in the afternoon, a rather tired looking but happy man hands some of the leaflets to us, we try to explain that we can’t read them, but he doesn’t care, he just wants rid of them.  By early evening the marchers must have been worn-out but eventually we either lost them or they packed up and went home and we went for another drink.  The bar/restaurants is one of the many that surround what seem to be the market hall, an impressive old iron and glass building that looks English and Victorian. 

We set off back to the campsite via the road route and find a part of the place we had not yet managed to stumble across but it can wait for another day.  The road route is quicker but the traffic is very busy, we pass back under the rail lines and alongside the train station, where a TGV train is parked up.  The road back is long and straight so it can give the impression that its is further than the river walk, you don’t seem to be getting any closer to your goal and we are also carrying too much shopping. 

The heavy shopping supplies us with pizza for super, Dot with a couple of Daiquiris and me with some Leffe Triple, so in my opinion it was worth it.  What we didn’t have was ice, the ice cube trays are nowhere to be found (bit like the satellite remote), so we fill a plastic food container with half an inch of water and bung it in the freezer compartment.