Dijon more than cuts the mustard

Accordion music serenades us on through Dijon’s triumphal gate.

As my wife, Kerry, and I stroll through Darcy Square toward William Gate (the French city’s equivalent of Paris’s famous Arc de Triomphe) an old man just happens to be sitting there on a folding chair playing the squeezebox — so fortuitous and quintessentially French.

We feel special and enchanted, although there are hundreds of other people milling around Darcy Square and passing through the arch in both directions.

The old busker was nonplussed — he just wanted passersby to toss a euro or two in the upturned hat at his feet. I contributed two euros and asked him, holding up my iPhone, if I could take a photo. He probably only partially understood, shrugged and then I snapped a picture of him not exactly smiling.

This scene plays out as Kerry and I take a jaunt from the AmaWaterways river cruise we were taking on the Saône on the AmaCello from Dijon to Lyon through France’s renowned Burgundy wine region.

Dijon intrigued us. After all, any simple game of word association automatically links Dijon with mustard.

In fact, some people may believe Dijon is solely a yellow condiment and not a city of 260,000 souls, the capital of the Burgundy region.

So, we step through William Gate and onto the pedestrianized Liberty Street to discover Dijon is a gem of neoclassical architecture oozing with French charm.

Shops of all kinds line the thoroughfares and side streets, selling clothes, shoes, electronics and, inevitably, mustard.

Not just any mustard, but moutarde de Bourgogne, a delicacy with the renowned protected geographical indication (PGI) status, meaning it can only be made the traditional way from mustard seeds grown in the Burgundy region, along with a splash of white wine from Burgundy — not the vinegar found in garishly yellow prepared mustards.

So of course, there’s a specialty mustard store at the corner — La Maison Maille, founded in 1747.

We enter, we marvel at the selection, we taste, we purchase.

Our tour guide, Sarah Tort, tells us the French are the world’s biggest consumers of mustard, downing an astounding one kilogram of it per person annually.

They’re not just smearing it on sandwiches, but making salad dressings with it, marinating meats in it, making sauces for vegetables and fish with it, and blending it with mayonnaise for a myriad of other uses.

The French even spread mustard on gingerbread — a savoury version, not the sweet kind we eat around Christmas.

Walking and gawking to the end of Liberty Street, we came upon Liberation Square, the former King’s Square, renamed after the Second World War. It’s actually a semi-circular plaza anchored by the former imposing and beautiful Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy.

The palace now houses Dijon’s city hall, an art museum and the tourism information centre.

The rest of the square is ringed by restaurants with their patios spilling out onto the plaza, creating that atmosphere that lures in visitors and locals alike.

The menus of these restaurants clearly exhibit there’s more to Dijon than mustard.

There are regional dishes like boeuf bourguignon (beef slow cooked in Burgundy’s signature red wine Pinot Noir), coq au vin (chicken cooked in Pinot Noir), escargot (snails in garlic butter and white wine, likely Burgundy’s signature white Chardonnay) and meurette (poached egg on a bed of croutons and topped with red-wine sauce).

We take an al fresco seat at Brasserie de l’Hôtel de Ville (BHV) to sip 2023 Nuiton-Beaunoy Bourgogne Pinot Noir and watch the world go by.

Back on the AmaCello, we start the Flavours of Burgundy river cruise on the Saône and make stops in Seurre, Chalon-sur-Saône, Tournus and Mâcon before ending up in Lyon at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers.

On board, there are wine-paired lunches and dinners, sip-and-sail happy hours, lounging on the sun deck and hanging out in our cabin staring at the Saône and other breathtaking passing scenery.

Excursions take us to visit castles and chateaus for Burgundy wine tastings (so much incredible Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Beaujolais), bicycle rides past vineyards and on walking tours through charming towns and villages.

In Lyon, we take advantage of its “world capital of gastronomy” status and imbibe at Les Halles de Lyon, the food hall of all food halls, and eat in a traditional bouchon Lyonnaise restaurant for simple, affordable and delicious fare such as the herbed cheese spread cervelle de canut (literally meaning “silk worker’s brains”), saucisson de Lyon and salade lyonnaise (Bibb lettuce with bacon, croutons and poached egg).

Air Canada makes it easy to travel to the region to enjoy an AmaWaterways river cruise, with four weekly, non-stop flights between Montreal and Lyon.

In fact, Air Canada is the only airline to fly year-round and non-stop between North America and Lyon.

Air Canada also continues the Lyonnaise cuisine theme on return flights with onboard lunches of pork terrine with Dijon mustard and boeuf bourguignon.

Check out destinationdijon.com, amawaterways.com and aircanada.com.

smacnaull@nowmediagroup.ca