Weekend Trips Around Europe: Dijon, France

When I went there it was called: The Centre de Rencontres Internationales et de Séjour de Dijon. This was actually one of the best hostel that I had the pleasure to stay in during my 6 months in France.

I stayed in a single that was equiped with a private bathroom, which is always good. It cost about 34 Euros a night and the building had an in-house restaurant which had great food, breakfast was free. Don't use the internet because it does not work so well and the staff there told me that so I just ended up wasting a couple of Euros.

The only possible downside for me was that I found it particularly hard to meet other travellers even when I was visiting the common areas. I was there in mid-march so it might just be because it was not during the busy travel season but it was still a great place to stay.

Also, this is about 20 minutes (5 miles) away from downtown Dijon so you would need to make sure you know at what time the busses stop running if you don't have anough fare for a taxi.

knowing very little about Dijon, I was somewhat reluctant to actually go there and visit but since I had promised a friend that I would come visit, I decided to keep my word and go. I was visiting from my study abroad program in Nantes, France.

Louch (a friend I was traveling with) and I didn’t really pack anything for the trip. I had my usual light backpack and he had his oversized bag. We both had a friend from school waiting for us so we split and decided to meet later during the day.

First thing 1st, it was off to the hostel to drop of my bag and then do so sightseeing of course. We took a trolley which is apparently pretty common in small towns in France and Dijon is by account pretty small (about 140,000 or so)

To this day I still find the whole transportation system in France to be a little weird. First you buy a ticket and when you get on the bus, trolley, train or whatever, it’s up to you to stamp the ticket when you’re onboard. So of course often enough I never stamp my ticket until I see the tranpo guys checking for stamps. Actually, I think I still have that unused ticket from Dijon somewhere in my wallet. Well got to the hostel only to realize it was quite nice. I almost could not find a place to stay since it was the only hostel that was remotely close the the city center. It took us about 20-25 minutes to get there and then we quickly headed back to town. I found Dijon to be somewhat of an uneventful town really. People did not party as much as I have seen elsewhere and the locals seemed pretty close. Nightclubs were substituted by small gathering at the local pub but it was a nice change of scenario for me.

Although this was a small, rural area, I kind of liked the calmness of this city and spend most of my time hoping from bars to bars and talking to my friend about some of the great experiences I had in Europe. To me Dijon seems to be a town where you can go and chillax and enjoy not doing anything stressful. I’m not sure if I’d go back because this level of calm and peace would probably drive me crazy if I had stayed for more than 2 days.