Dijon

Personally, I like the southern part of the Burgundy area, near Autun. Other than wine fanatics, there doesn't seem to be the usual crush of tourists - maybe its not a good intermediate stop. Food is good in Dijon, but whatever I can recommend is way out of date (late 80's was the last time we ate there). They have a nice museum in town, and its pretty compact. However, now that the autoroutes bypass most of the big cities, maybe the bad traffic is not so bad now compared with the late 80's.

I love that part of the country and Dijon is one of my favorite cities. I'd also like to put in a plug for its neighboring region, Franche Comte. Nestled in the Jura Mountains which divide France from Switzerland, it's a bucolic area of rolling hills, lakes, rivers and vineyards. I was lucky enough to be able to call Besancon (in the Doubs) my home for a year. It's an area of the country that tourists haven't found in droves yet.

Erin.....I think I did make some reference to a stop in Dijon this past spring when we made a "passed thru" stop on the way to Paris at the end of our river boat trip. We enjoyed our couple of hours walk thru the lovely town and had a couple of lovely sandwiches in a small cafe which is all we could expose ourselves to as dinner was reserved for in Paris for that evening.

I was suprised to see that no one reported on Dijon - or at least I didn't find any postings on it. So I am here to tell you that Dijon is a charming, absolutely lovely town to visit. Nice museums, good restaurants (at least 2 michelin ones), cute pedestrian streets, walking trail through city, etc. My husband and I spent a weekend there a while ago. We loved it so much that we even said one day we might like to live there. We had a great time discovering the town and even had dinner at one of Michelin restaurants. Very good food. I forget the name, but if anyone is interested I can find out what it was called. I love to buy souvenirs and so I came back from Dijon with about 6-8 little jars of all kinds of mustards. My husband didn't know what to do with me. But I say better a couple jars of mustard, then big bucks (or rather euros) on more expensive items!
As for our hotel... we stayed in a modest but cozy little place called "Le Jacquemart" in the historic area. Nice staff, clean rooms, good location, not too expensive. Not luxurious and modern, but it suited us just fine. I was actually quite pleased because our room was rather large (by french standards) and had a sofa, two armchairs, and a coffee table. This made it possible for us to have breakfast in our room both mornings for just 1 or 2 euros more. So I was pleased. Anyway, I just wanted to encourage all of you to visit Dijon - honestly, it really is a lovely place.