From Dijon, France to Kaiserslautern, Germany

As I mentioned in last week’s post (click here), we left Avignon on October 8th and traveled to Dijon, Kaiserslautern, Paris and then London, before heading back to the US. We enjoyed two days in Dijon which is located in the Côte-d’Or region of Bourgogne-Franche-Compté in eastern France. It is a beautiful city that is considered the mustard capital of the world.

In the 13th century, monks began making mustard here by mixing grape must with mustard seeds. It soon became highly regulated and included steep fines if the final product was less then stellar. A 14th century proverb boldly claims; there’s no mustard except in Dijon.

But enough about mustard. As I already mentioned, we spent two days in this lovely city, but easily could have stayed longer. Place de la Liberation is the core of Dijon’s historic center with the focal point being the 17th century Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. Here you’ll find Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon where the tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy are housed, and many works of art from multiple eras.

Dijon is a beautiful city, we enjoyed just wandering, and bien sûr, some delicious meals.

However, Dijon was just a quick stopping point along the way to Kaiserslautern, Germany, where we were headed to see our niece, her husband and their three children. Our niece’s husband is an Air Force officer and is stationed at Ramstein Air Base, a huge, American military base. Here we visited the post exchange, affectionately referred to as the PX. I took just a few photos since it’s basically a big, American style shopping mall. We were quite surprised to receive our change in American dollars after paying for our lunch in euros.

During our visit, we also visited Gartenschau Kaiserslautern, a beautiful garden all decked out for Halloween. There are life-size models of dinosaurs throughout the park, which were a big hit with the kids, and creative designs made using pumpkins.

We had an absolutely lovely time with family, getting to know the kids, and just hanging out. Our last visit with them was in Seoul, South Korea, in November 2019; pre COVID. Here here are a few posts from our time there:

Seoul, South Korea, A Few Highlights.

Seoul Lantern Festival

If you’re curious about our current travels, check out theTravelsketcher’s most recent post here. As always, I would love to hear from you, so feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

Wishing you grand adventures,

Tricia