So Friday morning at an ungodly hour we got on the train to Troyes. Troyes is a medieval town in the Champagne region of France, although it’s in the Champagne region there are no actual champagne cellars in the town itself. Troyes’ claim to fame is its many churches and wood framed buildings. Since we got in around 8:30am nothing was open so we grabbed some breakfast at a little cafe before figuring out what to do. After walking around the town for a bit we found the Cathedral of Troyes which was enormous and beautiful, but that was the only church open in the town so we headed to the outlet malls right outside of Troyes. Nothing was too incredibly exciting about the outlet malls. Everything was decently priced but then with the exchange it didn’t really make it worth it, so the only thing I bought was a new pair of Reeboks since my feet have been killing me from wearing the same shoes for about a month now. Anyways, the outlet mall was a bit of a bust so Maggie and I headed back to the train station to see if we could exchange our tickets for sometime before 8:30pm. We all ended up switching to a 6:00 train so we could get into Dijon at a more reasonable time. Dijon is located in the Bourgogne region of France and is famous for wines and well Dijon mustard. Once we got there we found some dinner and then ventured off to find our hotel. We took a bus about a half hour outside the city and were let off in what basically looked like a Wal-Mart parking lot. Surrounding the parking lot there were a bunch of hotels and a highway, on the other side of the highway was of course where our hotel was located. So we get there and get up to our room after an exhausting day and let me say that I will never again stay in an economy hotel again. The rooms were 38 euro for 3 people and I guess we got what we paid for. There was a double bed and then a bunk over the top of it, the floors had no carpeting and the bathroom looked like an RV bathroom. You’ll want to check out the pictures. It really didn’t matter much because I passed out since I was so exhausted. Before going to bed however i had the genius idea of sleeping on the top bunk. So in the morning I start to venture down the metal ladder and what do you know I slip. I ended up stepping on Maggie who was laying on the bottom bunk, scrapping my arm on the cottage cheese wall and bruising my other arm. I should have been a ballerina I’m so graceful. That out of the way we headed back into town for the day. We ate lunch at this great little cafe and I got a croque madame, this was by far the best I’ve had so far, on the inside it had some sort of cheesy cream sauce versus just the normal melted cheese and it was heavenly for just 5 euros. We had hoped that we;d be able to rent bikes for the day and bike through a vineyard but it ended up that they were all rented so we spent some time in the town where we visited Notre Dame de Dijon and bought some souvenirs. We got some info from the tourist office about visiting a vineyard right outside the city so we took the bus to Marsannay. We visited the Chateau de Marsannay Vineyard which since it’s in Bourgogne is famous for it’s reds but it is also the only vineyard in the Appalachian region to have a rose. Anyways it was 10 euro for a tour and tasting and we got to keep the glass! After the vineyard we headed back into town to grab some dinner. We settled on eating kebabs and desserts from this patisserie in a nice park. There we witnessed a bachelor party putting the groom in a kayak in the fountain in the middle of the park. Quite the site and then once he got out he was wearing a speedo and had to walk around introducing himself to people in the park. Apparently it’s tradition at the bachelor and bachelorette parties for the bride and groom to be to wear costumes and do embarrassing stuff. Anyways the weather was beautiful the whole weekend and since we were a bit South of Paris it was in the high 70′s. Overall a good weekend and nice to get out of the city. Parisians are so stuffy and everyone we met in Troyes and Dijon was incredibly friendly and helpful.
