Tourist information -
Dijon
Dijon owes its origins to its strategic position
in Celtic times on the tin merchants' route from Britain up the
Seine and across the Alps to the Adriatic. It became the capital
of the dukes of Burgundy in around 1000 AD, but its golden age occurred
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under the auspices of
dukes Philippe le Hardi (the Bold), who as a boy had fought the
English at Poitiers and been taken prisoner, Jean sans Peur (the
Fearless), Philippe le Bon (the Good), who sold Joan of Arc to the
English, and Charles le Téméraire (the Bold). They
used their tremendous wealth and power - especially their control
of Flanders, the dominant manufacturing region of the age - to make
Dijon one of the greatest centres of art, learning and science in
Europe. It lost its capital status on incorporation into the kingdom
of France in 1477, but has remained one of the country's pre-eminent
provincial cities, especially since the rail and industrial booms
of the mid-nineteenth century. Today, it is smart, modern and young,
especially when the students are around.
The rue de la Liberté forms the major east-west axis of
the town, running from the wide, attractive place Darcy and the
eighteenth-century triumphal arch of Porte Guillaume , once a city
gate, past the palace of the dukes of Burgundy on the semicircular
place de la Libération , east to the church of St Michel
. The street is pedestrianized and lined with smart shops and elegant
old houses, and most places of interest are within fifteen minutes'
walk to the north or south of it.
Dijon is not an enormous city and the part you'll want to see is
neatly confined in the centre and eminently walkable.
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