dijon
Frankly, our trip to Dijon was not one of the better trips we've had with the children. I don't think it was the city or the surrounding towns - it was us. Bao caught the coughing bug that had been plaguing The Bun and me for weeks, so she wasn't sleeping well, which meant that I wasn't sleeping well. The weather was drizzly and cold. Aside from wine tasting, eating in restaurants, and a spot of shopping, there wasn't really much to do.
Even so, the kids enjoyed themselves, even Bao when she wasn't cranky from disrupted sleep. The Bun LOVES holidays and has been surprisingly adaptable when it comes to sleeping in new places. These days, whenever we travel with the kids, I use AirBnB to look for an apartment. It is so much more comfortable than a hotel and the cost is usually comparable, if not cheaper, than a hotel. Our Dijon host spoke no English and so we communicated in mangled French (mine) and a lot of miming (hers). She was very friendly, though, and I always like meeting the apartment hosts and enjoying their personal touch in their home.
Our drive to Dijon took just under three hours. We stopped halfway at a rest-stop that also happened to serve Bresse chicken. This famous French chicken is one of the region's specialities and is the only AOC poultry in France. The free-range chooks apparently must have a minimum 10m² of land each (!!) to forage in and are fed a special diet of maize and milk as well. They are expensive (about €4 per kg) and it is one of J's wishes to go to Bresse and eat this chicken in a proper restaurant. Maybe one day when the kids are better-behaved in restaurants. Anyway, at this rest-stop J and I shared half a chicken for about €26. The meat was a bit dry but the roast skin was delicious and fragrant. I hardly think a rest-stop joint does justice to it so I guess a trip to Bresse will be in order for us soon!
The exterior of our apartment in Dijon
After settling into the apartment in Dijon, all of us went out to explore the old town, which was a short walk away. Unfortunately for us, Hurricane Gonzalo was sweeping its way across Western Europe and the city was windy, rainy, and very cold. We stopped to buy some mustard from the Maille shop along the main street, let the kids have a couple of rides on a vintage carousel, and finally escaped from the cold in FNAC's kid's section for almost forty-five minutes. FNAC is a multimedia/bookstore and it carries some toys and lots of books for kids. My toe was killing me at this point and I really needed to sit down.
By the time all the stores began to close (7pm) it was time for dinner. A short walk away was Le Bistrot Des Halles, a contemporary French restaurant. We were the second diners in and ordered quickly - fish for the kids to share, a very good mushroom risotto for me, and a burger for J. Overall, considering the kids were hungry, tired, and cold, the meal went quite smoothly with no tantrums from Bao.
The next morning we woke late and took our time with breakfast and getting dressed. Eventually we made it out for a short drive to Beaune, a small town considered the heart of the Burgundy wine region. We visited yet another moutarderiemustard mill, Edmond Fallot, and bought a couple more jars to add to our collection. The range of flavours is quite impressive - I even tried chocolate raspberry, which was interesting but I didn't buy that. The truffle mustard was excellent and it will be great in a burger.
At Edmond Fallot
Before lunch we visited L'Hôtel D'ieu, a museum that used to be the civil hospital of Beaune. The architecture dates back to the 15th century and the hospital was in use all the way from 1452 to 1971, which is quite amazing especially once you're standing inside it. The hospital beds lined up against a wall facing a chapel at one end of the sick room, the nuns' quarters, the kitchen and the pharmacy were all fascinating. The kids were more interested in playing with the audioguide than appreciating the history of the place, but at least they were occupied and that left J and I free to look around properly.
Lunch was at the very elegant Loiseau des Vignes. It wasn't really a place suited to the kids - the atmosphere was restrained and quiet, there were ceramic art pieces on each table, and there wasn't a kids' menu, obviously. Anyway, they had a very value-for-money lunch 'formule' (set lunch) at €29 for a three-course meal. The food was excellent, and the duck breast in particular stood out. I had to pull out all the stops to keep Bao occupied during the very long meal, however - drawing, plastic animals, and a big handful of play foam. At one point I took her to the restroom with me and killed some time in there by tying pigtails in her hair while she sat in the powder room playing with my iPhone. Even so, by the time dessert was served it was impossible to keep her in her seat, and she was walking around our table and hopping up and down. As we were leaving, a lady at the table closest to us smiled and told me that the children were 'magnifique'. I laughed and said 'didn't they chatter too much?' and she tutted and said no, the kids had done very well. I had faced her during my meal and thought that she was quite snobby and stern because she never once smiled our way and kept looking at us with a very serious look on her face. It just goes to show how people can surprise you, I guess.
Outstanding duck breast at lunch
Right after lunch Bao fell asleep in her stroller and J and I took the opportunity to visit Patriarche, a winery occupying what used to be a convent built in the 13th century. Its main selling point are the 5km of underground cellars that snake beneath the town, holding millions of bottles of wine. The oldest bottle dates from 1904 and as you walk through the cellars, you can see stacks of dusty bottles along the stone walls. Most of the walk is dimly lit and when you reach the tasting rooms, you sip various wines by candlelight. It was definitely an experience and The Bun especially enjoyed it.
Above and below the streets of Beaune
Done with the wine-tasting, we drove off to Toison d'Or, a huge mall on the outskirts of Dijon. Shopping in France is much better than shopping in Switzerland, as I learned earlier this year in Lyon. Sometimes I just want to get lost in a huge mall and give my money to mega corporations. At any rate, I only managed to shop at two places (!). One was HEMA, a Dutch retailer that is sort of like a European Target, with quirkily designed clothes and homeware for very reasonable prices; the other was Primark, i.e. cheap, disposable, fun clothing. J took the kids while I shopped - a sort of exchange of labour because I keep them occupied while he tastes and buys wine. I spent so much time in both of these places that I virtually shopped until the shops were about to close.
We ended up having dinner in the mall, at Hippopotamus, a French chain of steak restaurants that also happens to be very child-friendly. We snagged booth seats that faced a TV screen - score! There were activity books and markers - score! Our server brought us free potato chips to occupy the children while we waited for our food - score! The kids' meal was shared and eaten by both kids - score! (Bao usually does not eat much when we eat in proper French restaurants.) Best of all - it was a family restaurant so no one batted an eye at the kids' antics. Score! As I told J, sometimes it is such a relief to eat in a place like this, even if the food is not special or mind-blowing (it was in fact quite good). It simply takes the pressure off and everyone goes home happy (and with balloons).
On Thursday, we had another late start and only managed to briefly visit one winery, Château Meursault, before they closed for lunch. The kids discovered a tiny mouse (a field mouse? Dormouse? I have no idea) in the garden of the chateau and were captivated by it. It was completely unafraid of our approach and simply sat one foot away blithely chewing blades of grass. We went off to look at the vineyard and when we came back it was still eating, but the kids ran forward too noisily and the mouse ran, hiding in a hollow beneath a stone door.
At Château Meursault
Eventually we drove on to the very, very tiny town of Puligny-Montrachet to eat at the town's most well-known (and possibly only) restaurant, Olivier Laflaive. Eating here is a good way to taste many of the region's speciality wines, and the menu is designed to pair with a wine tasting. There was, surprisingly, a kid's menu, which was split between The Bun and Bao. They had four courses, just like the adults, but with kid-friendly food: ham, pickles, and bread to start with, buttered pasta with fried fish, Kiri cheese (a cream cheese spread) served together on the adults' cheese platter, and finally ice-cream to end the meal. The cost of their meal was only €5, and the staff were very accommodating towards the children, who had definitely had run out of patience and goodwill by this point in our holiday and were not keen to behave or sit properly in the restaurant. The Bun would yawn and make faces when the sommelier was speaking, Bao kept crawling off her chair to play with the curtains or the decorations at the side of the room, and both basically made a mess of the table and our surrounding area. Sigh. To me, this felt like a very, very long meal, and I was also tired from not enough sleep the night before, so I guess I didn't appreciate the food as much as I possibly could have.
Lunching at Olivier Laflaive
Bao napped in the car after lunch and while I waited in the car with her, J and The Bun made quick visits to the Cassissium, a small museum and factory devoted to the cassis (blackcurrant). J bought a bottle of cassis syrup for the kids and a bottle of crème de cassis for us. It is very tasty indeed and deceptively sweet. Something for a tipple in the afternoons when the kids are being too annoying, maybe.
Later on we visited L'Imaginarium, which was an odd sort of museum and wine boutique devoted to bubbly cremant wines. The kids had fun in the tiny interactive museum but there wasn't much to do once all fourteen exhibits had been explored, which took maybe twenty minutes.
It felt like a very long day, and before dinner we all went back to our apartment to decompress a bit. The children burnt off their excess energy playing with their balloons in the living room, while I hid in the kitchen whatsapping my friends and moaning about badly-behaved offspring.
All that turned out to be therapeutic, so our last dinner in Dijon turned out to be quite nice, actually. It was at Chez Leon, a homey restaurant serving regional dishes. I had an excellent beef onglet with truffle mashed potatoes (Bao ate a heap of this and little else) and with everyone eating up and behaving nicely, we even felt relaxed enough for dessert. Lesson learnt: always make time for the kids to run around and play boisterously in an appropriate space if you're expecting them to sit through long meals. Both of them had good appetites, The Bun was polite and well-behaved, and by virtue of the fact that Bao always copies whatever her brother is doing, she was quite manageable throughout the meal.
On Friday morning we tidied up the apartment, dropped the keys off in the letterbox, and began our long drive home. Our halfway point this time was the small city of Mâcon, which lies next to the River Sâone, very close to Lyon. Lunch was at a casual creperie near the river, and it was good to have something a little lighter than all the rich food we'd had on the trip. After lunch we took a walk through the tiny town centre, popped into St Pierre cathedral for a quick look, and then walked along the riverside promenade for the kids to run some energy off.
The St Laurent bridge, standing since the 11th century
When we got back into Geneva we drove straight to Balexert mall because we had an appointment with Bao's doctor. She had been coughing badly during the trip and had thrown up twice from all the coughing, and so I had made an appointment in advance for her while we were still away. It was probably the same respiratory virus that both The Bun and I had, and when she was not coughing, she was active and cheerful as usual. For once during her visit, she did not cry and cooperated quite well with the doctor examining her. I'm so tired of all of us being sick - it's one bug after another and now three of us in the household are on Ventolin and I am so familiar with all the medications that the doctor just runs through them quickly with me because we both already know how it goes.
Our first dinner back home was Chinese food, delivered to our doorstep and scarfed down by the children quickly. They definitely missed Chinese food while they were away!
Even so, the kids enjoyed themselves, even Bao when she wasn't cranky from disrupted sleep. The Bun LOVES holidays and has been surprisingly adaptable when it comes to sleeping in new places. These days, whenever we travel with the kids, I use AirBnB to look for an apartment. It is so much more comfortable than a hotel and the cost is usually comparable, if not cheaper, than a hotel. Our Dijon host spoke no English and so we communicated in mangled French (mine) and a lot of miming (hers). She was very friendly, though, and I always like meeting the apartment hosts and enjoying their personal touch in their home.
Our drive to Dijon took just under three hours. We stopped halfway at a rest-stop that also happened to serve Bresse chicken. This famous French chicken is one of the region's specialities and is the only AOC poultry in France. The free-range chooks apparently must have a minimum 10m² of land each (!!) to forage in and are fed a special diet of maize and milk as well. They are expensive (about €4 per kg) and it is one of J's wishes to go to Bresse and eat this chicken in a proper restaurant. Maybe one day when the kids are better-behaved in restaurants. Anyway, at this rest-stop J and I shared half a chicken for about €26. The meat was a bit dry but the roast skin was delicious and fragrant. I hardly think a rest-stop joint does justice to it so I guess a trip to Bresse will be in order for us soon!
The exterior of our apartment in Dijon
After settling into the apartment in Dijon, all of us went out to explore the old town, which was a short walk away. Unfortunately for us, Hurricane Gonzalo was sweeping its way across Western Europe and the city was windy, rainy, and very cold. We stopped to buy some mustard from the Maille shop along the main street, let the kids have a couple of rides on a vintage carousel, and finally escaped from the cold in FNAC's kid's section for almost forty-five minutes. FNAC is a multimedia/bookstore and it carries some toys and lots of books for kids. My toe was killing me at this point and I really needed to sit down.
By the time all the stores began to close (7pm) it was time for dinner. A short walk away was Le Bistrot Des Halles, a contemporary French restaurant. We were the second diners in and ordered quickly - fish for the kids to share, a very good mushroom risotto for me, and a burger for J. Overall, considering the kids were hungry, tired, and cold, the meal went quite smoothly with no tantrums from Bao.
The next morning we woke late and took our time with breakfast and getting dressed. Eventually we made it out for a short drive to Beaune, a small town considered the heart of the Burgundy wine region. We visited yet another moutarderiemustard mill, Edmond Fallot, and bought a couple more jars to add to our collection. The range of flavours is quite impressive - I even tried chocolate raspberry, which was interesting but I didn't buy that. The truffle mustard was excellent and it will be great in a burger.
At Edmond Fallot
Before lunch we visited L'Hôtel D'ieu, a museum that used to be the civil hospital of Beaune. The architecture dates back to the 15th century and the hospital was in use all the way from 1452 to 1971, which is quite amazing especially once you're standing inside it. The hospital beds lined up against a wall facing a chapel at one end of the sick room, the nuns' quarters, the kitchen and the pharmacy were all fascinating. The kids were more interested in playing with the audioguide than appreciating the history of the place, but at least they were occupied and that left J and I free to look around properly.
Lunch was at the very elegant Loiseau des Vignes. It wasn't really a place suited to the kids - the atmosphere was restrained and quiet, there were ceramic art pieces on each table, and there wasn't a kids' menu, obviously. Anyway, they had a very value-for-money lunch 'formule' (set lunch) at €29 for a three-course meal. The food was excellent, and the duck breast in particular stood out. I had to pull out all the stops to keep Bao occupied during the very long meal, however - drawing, plastic animals, and a big handful of play foam. At one point I took her to the restroom with me and killed some time in there by tying pigtails in her hair while she sat in the powder room playing with my iPhone. Even so, by the time dessert was served it was impossible to keep her in her seat, and she was walking around our table and hopping up and down. As we were leaving, a lady at the table closest to us smiled and told me that the children were 'magnifique'. I laughed and said 'didn't they chatter too much?' and she tutted and said no, the kids had done very well. I had faced her during my meal and thought that she was quite snobby and stern because she never once smiled our way and kept looking at us with a very serious look on her face. It just goes to show how people can surprise you, I guess.
Outstanding duck breast at lunch
Right after lunch Bao fell asleep in her stroller and J and I took the opportunity to visit Patriarche, a winery occupying what used to be a convent built in the 13th century. Its main selling point are the 5km of underground cellars that snake beneath the town, holding millions of bottles of wine. The oldest bottle dates from 1904 and as you walk through the cellars, you can see stacks of dusty bottles along the stone walls. Most of the walk is dimly lit and when you reach the tasting rooms, you sip various wines by candlelight. It was definitely an experience and The Bun especially enjoyed it.
Above and below the streets of Beaune
Done with the wine-tasting, we drove off to Toison d'Or, a huge mall on the outskirts of Dijon. Shopping in France is much better than shopping in Switzerland, as I learned earlier this year in Lyon. Sometimes I just want to get lost in a huge mall and give my money to mega corporations. At any rate, I only managed to shop at two places (!). One was HEMA, a Dutch retailer that is sort of like a European Target, with quirkily designed clothes and homeware for very reasonable prices; the other was Primark, i.e. cheap, disposable, fun clothing. J took the kids while I shopped - a sort of exchange of labour because I keep them occupied while he tastes and buys wine. I spent so much time in both of these places that I virtually shopped until the shops were about to close.
We ended up having dinner in the mall, at Hippopotamus, a French chain of steak restaurants that also happens to be very child-friendly. We snagged booth seats that faced a TV screen - score! There were activity books and markers - score! Our server brought us free potato chips to occupy the children while we waited for our food - score! The kids' meal was shared and eaten by both kids - score! (Bao usually does not eat much when we eat in proper French restaurants.) Best of all - it was a family restaurant so no one batted an eye at the kids' antics. Score! As I told J, sometimes it is such a relief to eat in a place like this, even if the food is not special or mind-blowing (it was in fact quite good). It simply takes the pressure off and everyone goes home happy (and with balloons).
On Thursday, we had another late start and only managed to briefly visit one winery, Château Meursault, before they closed for lunch. The kids discovered a tiny mouse (a field mouse? Dormouse? I have no idea) in the garden of the chateau and were captivated by it. It was completely unafraid of our approach and simply sat one foot away blithely chewing blades of grass. We went off to look at the vineyard and when we came back it was still eating, but the kids ran forward too noisily and the mouse ran, hiding in a hollow beneath a stone door.
At Château Meursault
Eventually we drove on to the very, very tiny town of Puligny-Montrachet to eat at the town's most well-known (and possibly only) restaurant, Olivier Laflaive. Eating here is a good way to taste many of the region's speciality wines, and the menu is designed to pair with a wine tasting. There was, surprisingly, a kid's menu, which was split between The Bun and Bao. They had four courses, just like the adults, but with kid-friendly food: ham, pickles, and bread to start with, buttered pasta with fried fish, Kiri cheese (a cream cheese spread) served together on the adults' cheese platter, and finally ice-cream to end the meal. The cost of their meal was only €5, and the staff were very accommodating towards the children, who had definitely had run out of patience and goodwill by this point in our holiday and were not keen to behave or sit properly in the restaurant. The Bun would yawn and make faces when the sommelier was speaking, Bao kept crawling off her chair to play with the curtains or the decorations at the side of the room, and both basically made a mess of the table and our surrounding area. Sigh. To me, this felt like a very, very long meal, and I was also tired from not enough sleep the night before, so I guess I didn't appreciate the food as much as I possibly could have.
Lunching at Olivier Laflaive
Bao napped in the car after lunch and while I waited in the car with her, J and The Bun made quick visits to the Cassissium, a small museum and factory devoted to the cassis (blackcurrant). J bought a bottle of cassis syrup for the kids and a bottle of crème de cassis for us. It is very tasty indeed and deceptively sweet. Something for a tipple in the afternoons when the kids are being too annoying, maybe.
Later on we visited L'Imaginarium, which was an odd sort of museum and wine boutique devoted to bubbly cremant wines. The kids had fun in the tiny interactive museum but there wasn't much to do once all fourteen exhibits had been explored, which took maybe twenty minutes.
It felt like a very long day, and before dinner we all went back to our apartment to decompress a bit. The children burnt off their excess energy playing with their balloons in the living room, while I hid in the kitchen whatsapping my friends and moaning about badly-behaved offspring.
All that turned out to be therapeutic, so our last dinner in Dijon turned out to be quite nice, actually. It was at Chez Leon, a homey restaurant serving regional dishes. I had an excellent beef onglet with truffle mashed potatoes (Bao ate a heap of this and little else) and with everyone eating up and behaving nicely, we even felt relaxed enough for dessert. Lesson learnt: always make time for the kids to run around and play boisterously in an appropriate space if you're expecting them to sit through long meals. Both of them had good appetites, The Bun was polite and well-behaved, and by virtue of the fact that Bao always copies whatever her brother is doing, she was quite manageable throughout the meal.
On Friday morning we tidied up the apartment, dropped the keys off in the letterbox, and began our long drive home. Our halfway point this time was the small city of Mâcon, which lies next to the River Sâone, very close to Lyon. Lunch was at a casual creperie near the river, and it was good to have something a little lighter than all the rich food we'd had on the trip. After lunch we took a walk through the tiny town centre, popped into St Pierre cathedral for a quick look, and then walked along the riverside promenade for the kids to run some energy off.
The St Laurent bridge, standing since the 11th century
When we got back into Geneva we drove straight to Balexert mall because we had an appointment with Bao's doctor. She had been coughing badly during the trip and had thrown up twice from all the coughing, and so I had made an appointment in advance for her while we were still away. It was probably the same respiratory virus that both The Bun and I had, and when she was not coughing, she was active and cheerful as usual. For once during her visit, she did not cry and cooperated quite well with the doctor examining her. I'm so tired of all of us being sick - it's one bug after another and now three of us in the household are on Ventolin and I am so familiar with all the medications that the doctor just runs through them quickly with me because we both already know how it goes.
Our first dinner back home was Chinese food, delivered to our doorstep and scarfed down by the children quickly. They definitely missed Chinese food while they were away!