Dijon via Colmar

Sunday 29th September

Strasbourg to Colmar

It was a beautiful sunny morning and not a cloud in the sky for our drive from Strasbourg down to Dijon via Colmar.

This made it much easier to get from the apartment down to the car and for the drive. Navigating on the other side of the road in the wet would not have been much fun.

We arrived at the outskirts of Colmar by about 9.30 am and we were struggling to see how this town could have been rated as prettier than Strasbourg.

There was very little activity given the relatively early hour and so we decided to take a ride on the tourist train to help us get our bearings; this took about 35 minutes to do a loop of the Old Town. Colmar’s Old Town is much smaller and more compact than Strasbourg’s but, as we moved within the aldstadt we discovered it is, indeed, very pretty.

The hordes had arrived by the time we finished our tour though. It was like the masses of tourists that had been at Strasbourg yesterday had followed us to Colmar today. We decided to go and have a coffee and a croissant before taking some photos of the old town.

Colmar was on our route to Dijon but it would’ve been worth a detour to visit anyway. It is very pretty and well worth visiting. The photos below are not captioned but just a collection of those taken of our walk through the Old Town.

It was midday by the time we got back to the car to make our way to Dijon.

The 2 1/2 hour drive from Colmar down to Dijon was very easy. It was a pretty drive on a good road through rolling hills of farmland.

Dijon

Dijon Hotel: Maison Philippe Le Bon

Address: 18 rue Sainte Anne, Dijon Centre Ville, 21000 Dijon, France

Our Dijon accommodation for the two nights was a lovely historic hotel that was well located; just a few minutes walk from the center of the old town. Our room was very stylish, of a generous size and situated in the 15th Century part of the building.

We dropped our bags and headed straight out to stroll the Old Town and pick up some information from the tourist office. There aren’t any walking tours offered in English but they do have a mapped walk, called ‘The Owls trail’ which you navigate on your own using the accompanying information map and information booklet available from the tourist office. There are little brass Owls embedded along the walking path to help guide you on your way.

Strolling through the old town revealed that very little was open. Sunday’s are obviously quiet days for the locals. A quick search soon revealed that there were very few restaurants open for dinner. There were quite a lot of people wandering through the town though so we were wondering where they were all going to have their evening meal. We managed to find one restaurant that was going to open again at 7 pm and so made a booking at Le Pre aux Clercs. This restaurant is located in the large Place de la Liberation and opposite the grand and imposing Palais des Ducs, Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy; a building dating back to 1366 that now houses the Town Hall and Fine Arts Museum. We decided to head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before venturing out again for dinner but were pleasantly surprised to find the restaurant in our hotel was actually open for the night, contrary to what the website revealed. So, new decision, we’re resting up here and then eating in.