When I arrived in Paris a warm rain was falling. As my taxi sped through the wet streets I started snapping blurry pics. One after the other!
I splurged on one night at the Hôtel Duc de Saint-Simon in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It is secreted away on a narrow side street. My only disappointment was the narrow spiral staircase I ascended to my room. My wing of the hotel didn’t have an elevator. Fortunately, my mountain goat ancestors urged me higher and I made it with nary a slip or grunt. It helped that someone carried my suitcase.
Please let me know if you’ve stayed here before, or if there’s another hidden Parisian gem I need to know about!
I dropped my bags off and before I knew what had happened my feet had led me to two gardens! And a sky the color of apricots. I felt myself going into full incense cloud mode. Which, frankly isn’t hard to do in Paris, is it?
The next morning I read in bed with the windows to my room open wide to admit the sounds of rain, but also the voices of other hotel guests to whom I listened with some fascination. As there was no mini-fridge in my room I stored my water outside on the weathered zinc gutter beneath the windows. Need cold fresh water! Another genetic relic of mountain goat days, long past? No one knows. I rose occasionally for long swigs from my gutter spring, then back to my enormous bed to continue reading.
Before long I headed to Gare de Lyon for my midday departure to Dijon. Just one last look around my fabric covered walls and I slid down the stairs to my waiting taxi. I managed to find the platform, carriage, and my seat without any undue difficulty. The horse chestnut in my left pocket may have had something to do with my good fortune.
Soon I was whizzing southeast to Burgundy on a high speed train, my eyes focused out the window on the changing landscape. 90 minutes and a short taxi ride later, after a confusing set of check-in directions, I was in my ground-floor apartment.
In the coming days I would follow the sun around the apartment. This was my morning spot where I wrote in my journal, drank coffee, and listened to the birds in the tiny garden outside my window.
I unpacked then hurried out to get my bearings. Dijon is wonderfully walkable. The historic core is part of a Unesco World Heritage Site and I’d say it’s about the size of one of the smaller Paris arrondissements. The thing that initially attracted me was the medieval core with its half-timbered buildings and colorful tiled roofs. I also liked that it was the capital of Burgundy and, while not off the beaten track per se, is not part of the typical American itinerary.
My trusty Target men’s hoodie functioned as a top, coat, and robe around the house.
Staying for a week meant I didn’t have to hurry. I drifted through the streets slowly racking up the miles, knowing I would have a lot of time to explore, to sit on benches, read my books, take notes, discover gardens and parks, ride busses and trams, get lost, go on plenty of wild goose chases, and make two day trips by train to Beaune and Dole.
I have no travel journal to share from this trip. I made the decision to just keep a small private writing journal for notes, observations, maps, etc., Completely free from the obligation to create a beautiful keepsake, I spent my evenings untethered. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t carry a sketchbook with me! I left some blank pages here and there for painting some of the timber-framed buildings and rooftops from photos now that I’m home.
I’m making YouTube Shorts of my travel days until I either get sick of it or run out of trip days. Light editing, no music, on the whole rather boring, but my future self will enjoy revisiting my trip. I haven’t posted a video on YT in 7 years! If you already caught my IG reels I made while traveling, these are their quieter cousins with some repeat clips. Or if you have insomnia some night and want to have a look, be my guest! They’re here on my YT channel.
I’ll be offering another online class (Oh My Gouache) free of charge in November. I periodically offer free enrollment on various retired classes. Subscribe if you want to catch the limited sign-up windows. Currently nothing is open for registration except Sewn & Ticket To Venice which are always available.
As usual, share your world as you see fit, I love knowing what’s happening out there with you gentle readers.
