A gargoyle looms over the rooftops of Dijon from the Tour Philippe le Bon. The tower was built in 1450 as symbol of the power of the Dukes of Burgundy, and renovated two years ago. The view’s worth the 316 steps to the top. Betsa Marsh photo

Dijon fans out from the demi-lune Place de la Liberation, one of France’s most elegant plazas. Recent renovations put playful fountains in front of the 17^th-century stone facades. Betsa Marsh photo

The new fountains in the Place de la Liberation are irresistible. Betsa Marsh photo

A little girl gambols over the monument in Place Francois Rude, a 1904 square named in honor of a sculptor born in Dijon. Betsa Marsh photo

A skateboater makes good use of the plaza at Porte Guillaume, an 18th-century triumphal arch near Place Darcy. Betsa Marsh photo

The Jardin de l’Arquebuse at the Natural History Museum is a peaceful escape from Dijon’s city center, with reflecting pools, an arboretum and 3,500 species of plants. The weeping willow over the canal is said to come from a cutting off Napoleon’s “tomb” at St. Helena; Napoleon’s body is in Paris. Betsa Marsh photo

Pain e’pices, honey-spice bread, is regional comfort food in Burgundy. Here, homemade slabs are served with butter and gelee de cassis at Alice’s in Dijon. Betsa Marsh photo

The Route des Grand Crus is a sinuous delight for cyclists. Betsa Marsh photo

Jacques Coberger and Prince gently work the soil between the vines in Gevrey-Chambertin along the Route des Grand Crus, a region famous for its Grand Cru reds from pinot noir grapes. Horses and plows are much lighter than tractors, compacting the limestone soil less than machinery. Betsa Marsh photo

The famous Chateau du Clos de Vougeot is a 124-acre walled vineyard owned by the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Tastevin. Dating back to 1098, the chateau was a favorite of King Louis XI, who built the current version in the 15th century, and of writer and gourmand Rabelais in the 17-century—even entertainer Josephine Baker sipped wine here in the 20^th century. Betsa Marsh photo

The monastic buildings of the Chateau du Clos de Vougeot date back to the 12th century. The barn still holds four vast grape presses from the monks’ era.  Betsa Marsh photo

The church at Fontenay Abbey survives from its consecration Oct. 21, 1147, by Pope Eugene III. Betsa Marsh photo

A solitary reader finds a quiet nook in the cloister of Fontenay Abbey, one of the few intact monastic quadrangles to survive from the Middle Ages. Betsa Marsh photo

Dijon Spices Up the Burgundian Wine Trail  

By Betsa Marsh

You haven’t Segwayed until you’ve jolted over century-scuffed cobblestone, each bump bouncing you deeper into the medieval heart of Dijon, France.

Like the gingerbread that’s baked everywhere in this Burgundian capital, the old town is a true mélange: a millennium-old crypt here, a 15^th-century half-timbered house there, elegant Neoclassical townhouses just two doors down.

The Segway is just one of the new ways Dijon tourism is showing off its treasures. Each route shuffles the centuries so a roll through town quickly feels like a scavenger hunt. Let’s find the worn stone owl on the corner of Notre Dame Cathedral and touch it for good luck. Here’s the 1483 Maison Milliere where Gerald Depardieu starred in “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Let’s go see how the other half lived in the Ducal Palace.

From the visitor centers, travelers join walking tours, rent bikes, try new PDA Visioguides and even launch out over the rooftops and vineyards in hot air balloons. After all, France’s Montgolfier brothers invented ballooning in 1783.

Since its earliest days as a Celtic settlement and then the Roman city of Divo, Dijon has been a player. It came into its own in 1364, when Philip the Bold, one branch of France’s royal Valois family, received the duchy as a privilege, added Belgium and the Netherlands through marriage, and set up a court to rival King Charles V’s in Paris. Within a century, his descendants bolstered Burgundy into sprawling sovereignty until Duke Charles the Bold died in battle in 1477 and King Louis XI quickly snatched wine-rich Burgundy back into the French fold.

The dukes’ legacy is everywhere in this city of 150,000: in the 1450 Tour Philippe le Bon, a puffing climb up 316 steps for the city’s best views short of a hot air balloon; and in their palace, now the Beaux Arts Museum. The exquisitely carved tombs of John the Fearless and Philip the Bold hint at their earthly wealth.

The city fans out from this core, in the demi-lune Place de la Liberation that is one of France’s most elegant plazas. Recent renovations put playful fountains in front of the 17^th-century stone facades. This is the spot to relax with a coffee and watch children splash in the irresistible jets.

History hounds zoom to the archaeological museum, a two-for-one hit with excavated artifacts spotlighted within the 1,000-year-old St. Benigne Abbey—high marks, especially, to the scriptorium. Next door, crypt connoisseurs—we know who we are--find the perfect storm under the Cathedral: dozens of columns, cobwebs, dripping water, stalactites and not one but two sarcophagi, back to the crude stone tomb of St. Benigne, Burdundy’s first apostle. Don’t miss the columns where the poor stone mason tried seven times before he successfully chiseled a man raising his arms in prayer.

Back up on modern street level, it’s definitely time to check out some of the local delicacies. Maybe a nice Kir aperitif: crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur, blended with Burgundy’s own dry white Aligote wine.

And to accompany? How about escargot, Burgundy’s famous snail symbol? Followed, perhaps, by beef a la Bourguignonne, with local Charolais beef simmered in the region’s red wine. And don’t forget a dollop of Dijon’s own mustard.

Afterwards, every restaurant, patisserie and home kitchen has its own version of pain e’pices, the honey-spice bread that’s been baking in Dijon for generations. It’s not the gingerbread most Americans know, but rather a dense-textured cake that leaves a cinnamon/ginger memory. Paired with local Cremant dessert wine, of course.               

Food and wine are inextricably linked in a region where vines were first plunked into the gravelly limestone soil about 330 B.C. Monks carried on the tradition, and Burgundy has thrived ever since on the strength of such labels as Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-St. Georges and Chassagne-Montrachet. The meticulous vines, tasting rooms and chateaux are as close as a day trip south along the Route des Grand Crus—the “Champs-Elysses of Burgundy.”

Oenophiles at Chateau Andre Ziltener pour local vintages in the cellars, ripe with must, where Cistercian monks once labored. Hold your glass of grand cru Charmes-Chamberlin 2005, at $165 a bottle, above a jumble of stained-glass shards as the monks used to do. When the reds matched the ruby of cathedral windows, they knew the wine was ready.

A few miles away at Chateau du Clos de Vougeot, the monks’ giant wine presses anchor four corners of their vast 12th-century stone barn. It took six to eight monks to turn the massive walnut screw. Just east, Chateau de Gilly is now a luxury hotel and restaurant in the sumptuous mansion once enjoyed by Cistercian abbots. “The abbot lived nearer the wine than the other monks,” guide Stephanie Chiron jokes.

The strict Cistercian ideal of poverty, prayer and physical labor began earnestly enough, however, in 1098, when Robert de Molesmes chose an isolated bit of swamp for his new order. The monks couldn’t help it if dukes and kings kept granting them land, money and tax exemptions. What’s an abbot to do?

The heart of this new order is Citeaux Abbey, a stark complex in St.-Nicolas-les Citeaux. The 30 monks now living there welcome visitors to the modern church and the 15^th-century library, the only medieval vestige.

A much better view of early monastic life remains at Fontenay Abbey, saved from revolutionary destruction by a quick-thinking entrepreneur who snapped up the vast stone buildings for his paper factory. He set his machines under the Gothic arches of the church, cloister and 12th-century forge, often cited as the first metallurgical factory in Europe.

Privately owned, Fontenay Abbey is a rare UNESCO World Heritage site with the owner living onsite. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, Hubert Aynard and his white dog strolled among the hoi polloi.

Sunday is the perfect time for this jaunt into the countryside, past miles of wheat fields, spools of hay and herds of Charolais—and very few cars. Burgundy has one of France’s lowest population densities, a breath of fresh air after frenetic Paris, 100 minutes away by TGV.

By American standards, vineyards and farms can be miniscule. There are dozens of wine estates—domaines—in the 25 winding miles between Dijon and photogenic Beaune, Burgundy’s wine center. As famous as Burgundian wines are, they make up just 10 percent of Bordeaux’s output, and one percent of France’s total production.

Families, such as Sylvain Olivier’s, can make a living from as few as 13 acres at Fruirouge. After inheriting the hilltop holding that his grandfather devoted to wine production, Olivier and his wife Isabelle decided to bank on the red fruits that are a Burgundian hallmark: strawberries, raspberries, cherries, red currants and, of course, the legendary blackcurrant.

Naturally, the Cistercian monks had a hand here, too, bringing bare blackberry twigs from central Europe. They used the leaves for medicine and ignored the berries, but now the fruit is coveted, and the buds go into such luxuries as Chanel No. 5.

Isabelle, a literature major, prowls old texts for forgotten recipes, which Olivier and his brother-in-law Antoine Coitoux cook and bottle. Each year it’s a new item from their Fruirouge line, from cassis butter, a pureed berry explosion, to flavored vodka and cassis ketchup, a piquant relish.

“Cut me,” Sylvain says with a jab to his forearm, “and I bleed cassis.”

Their old stone factory is set up for tasting, and it seems that most of Burgundy is made for sampling. Sip a wine and find one to ship home.  Nibble a bit of gingerbread and soon you own a loaf. Stop by Maille Moutarde to watch the golden stream flow from the tap, and you’re buying a mustard pot like every good Bourgogne family used to have.

Even better, try grinding your own mustard seeds at La Moutarderie Fallot in Beaune, where the air zaps your sinuses with wild mustard seeds and vinegar. Videos and a turn at the mortar and pestle stir up fresh appreciation for an ancient condiment.

Like her famous grapevines, every Burgundian icon spreads its roots deep into a culture unchanged, in many ways, for centuries. Romans, medieval monks and Great Dukes may be long gone, but their legacies echo every time a bottle of Burgundy clinks against a waiting wine glass in age-old invitation.

This Globespin was last updated September 2007, and all information was accurate at that time.