Mustard And Cheese

Dijon

This was another town we had passed on earlier trips but had not ventured in. The place has a campsite and on the front of it a place for motorhomes. The write-up in our information said that it was a good location for visiting the town and only 10 euros for the night, unfortunately when we arrived there was a sign saying that the place was full, despite the fact that we could see empty places. Luckily on the way in we spotted a carpark next to the lake where another motorhome was parked. We backtracked and spent the night, with a few other motorhomes who had the same predicament as us. It was a pretty noisy place unfortunately, the road was busy and there was a train just the other side but when you are in a pinch anything will do.

The owl marker, this where you stop and the booklet tell you where the interesting sights are.

The covered market with stalls surrounding it.

He gave us some samples so we gave in and bought a nice piece of chorizo.

In the morning we decided to drive further into Dijon centre and try our luck with parking close by. Our luck held out and we found parking close to the centre. We asked a few people about paying for the carpark and one man said we had to pay and another said we were in a free parking space. To be on the safe side we put in a couple of euros and displayed the ticket in the front.

Statue in the old church. Looks like Joan of Arc?

Inside the mustard shop where it was also being made.

The tourist office have maps which give a walking route of the town, it’s called the “Owl Route” as on the ground you follow markers with an owl picture on it and when there are places of interest there are large Owl plaques with numbers corresponding to the information in the booklet. This took us to places that we would never have though to go and covered the town in a methodical way.

These are the owl markers so you can follow the route.

Interesting wood carving on the side of the building.

The town has a large covered market and on the outside many stalls. We passed by the stall with sausages and other meat products and the young man lured us in with free samples until our will power gave out and we bought a stick of chorizo,(he must have seen us coming). Of course a trip to Dijon would not be complete without buying some mustard. The shop that we went into not only sold it but was making it there as well. They had small bread sticks with which you could put sample mustard on to try, we ended up buying two pots.

Always look down in France

Walking through the streets it’s always a good idea to look down at where you are walking the reason is dog poop. While most dog owners clean up after their dogs there are a few who don’t and the streets can be a mine field. In the man mall of Dijon there was a couple who had two dogs, they looked more feral than their dogs, but when the large dog decided to use the mall as it’s toilet they just kept walking on leaving the mess for someone “not looking down” to step into. I had some evil thoughts about picking it up and returning it to the dog’s owners!!

Back in the “Bunyip” we had lunch and headed off stopping at a Lidl for shopping and a cheap bargain market where we found some foam for the cupboards and some new pillows.

The aire we stayed in overnight was in a small village between Dijon and Besancon our next destination. Heuilley-sur-Saone it was called and we were the only people in the aire which made for a very quiet night.

Wednesday 29th July 2015

After the busy day before we had a quiet morning and then got around to doing a few jobs. The first was to lower the shower holder in the bathroom as it has always been too high, the next was to put our newly purchased foam in our cup and glass cupboard. Over the years the initial foam we put in has started to break up and crumble, and the original holes we cut out doesn’t match our current set of glasses and cups. With a sharp knife and some heat from the stove we marked out our holes and cut out the circles. Jobs done, after lunch we headed off in the direction of Besancon.

Laying out our cups etc ready to be cut out.

Tyre problem again

We left the aire and I realized that one of the rear tyres was flat so we drove slowly until we reached to outskirts of Besancon where in the commercial region we found a tyre place. It was a large business and what seemed like one of the managers spoke good English and I explained that I would take of the tyre and could they have a look at it. When they examined the tyre they found that the valve was faulty and they put another new one in. After I put the tyre back I went to see the manager again to ask about payment. “Free” he told me, we I thanked him profusely and we continued on our way. The same thing happened to us last year in Germany and it cost us 40 euros, many thanks to the friendly French tyre man.

Besancon

We arrived at the aire in Besancon mid to late afternoon and the weather was not kind to us as the rain was pouring down. It was not a good time to go walking so we had a quiet afternoon watching the comings and goings on the aire. The ticket machine is set up for the cars in the carpark and our sources told us that it would cost 5 euros to stay for 24 hours, other motorhomers were of the same opinion. It was entertainment to see all the new arrivals try and work out the machine, even the French were baffled by it. We put in our 5 euros put and displayed our ticket and no-one came to give us a fine so I hope we were ok.

At the aire we met a Scottish couple who were touring, Europe Dave and Linda, and we spent some time together sharing stories over the next day.

Dave and Linda a friendly couple from Scotland.

The next morning was a complete contrast to yesterday’s rain and we headed into town in the sunshine.
Our first destination was the SFR phone shop as our sim card is not allowing us to hotspot to the computer, all our previous cards have done this without any problems. The person who sold us the card when asked said “yes of course you can hotspot”, so never believe a salesman. The person who helped us this time after trying different cards and ringing up his hotline told us that no the sim cannot hotspot to another device. Live and learn, the next time I will be testing the card to see if it works before leaving the shop.

This graffiti warns of the dangers of walking while on the mobile phone.

We spent a few hours exploring the town after finding the tourist information office, the one in the centre of town had a fire and they relocated to another site. We followed the trail, this time it was clocks, they had set out in the map and followed the markers on the ground. The place is smaller than Dijon we followed the route until our stomach’s told us it was time to have lunch, armed with a baguette in the backpack we arrived back at the aire around two.

the young boy has his foot on the hose and the old man is looking at the hose. Every so often water spurts into the mans face. — The young boy has his foot on the hose and the old man is looking at the hose. Every so often water spurts into the mans face.

Old gates going back to the Roman times.

Dave and Linda were also back from there walk and we wished farewell as we set off to the goat farm!!!

The Goat Farm

In the France Passion book we saw in the direction that we were heading a stay at a goat farm that makes cheese. It was about 50kms drive and when we arrived we were greeted by the owner and we parked up near to the goat shed on the grass. Another motorhome arrived about an hour after us and parked on another piece of grass only to get stuck in some soft mud. Our entertainment for the next 45 minutes was seeing how they managed to get themselves out and parked on the hard surface.

The goats are fed every night in the stalls at 7pm and are only milked once a day at around 9.30 in the morning. The owners were friendly and when we left in the morning we purchased some goats cheese, 3 pieces for 6.50 euros a very nice addition to our supplies.