Dijon is often treated as a stopover. A place to change trains on the way to somewhere else in France, or a name people know for mustard and not much else. I spent four days there and left with a list of things to do longer than I expected for a city its size.
This is that list. I did everything here myself, but I’ve included the one attraction I skipped on purpose (and why).
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Why Visit Dijon
Dijon was the seat of the Dukes of Burgundy, a dynasty that at its peak controlled territory stretching from the Netherlands to the Swiss border. That history is still visible in the old town, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2015 for its historic centre and the Climats of the Burgundy vineyards beyond it.
The centre is compact enough to cover its highlights on foot in a day, though I’d recommend two days or more if you want to take it slower and add a wine tour. It’s one of the easiest bases in France for exploring Burgundy, with vineyard villages and Beaune within easy reach.
Best Things to Do in Dijon
1. Follow the Owl Trail
The Owl Trail (Parcours de la Chouette) is the easiest way to get your bearings in Dijon. Small brass owls are set into the pavement at regular intervals, and following them takes you on a continuous loop past twenty-two of the city’s main historic sights.
Pick up the booklet from the tourist office on Rue des Forges. It’s the best four euros you’ll spend here.
Each stop is numbered to match the owls on the ground, and has a short paragraph explaining what you’re looking at. I found myself referring back to it a lot, especially outside the smaller churches and courtyards.
The trail itself takes around an hour to walk at a normal pace, longer if you stop at each point. It threads through the old town’s narrow streets and squares, so you end up passing several of the sights on this list without realising it, before doubling back to see them again later in the day.
Within the booklet, there are also three themed loops covering areas the main trail skips, aimed at visitors staying more than a day or two.
2. Climb the Tower of Philip the Good
The Ducal Palace anchors the old town, and the Tower of Philip the Good is its centrepiece. Only four dukes ruled Burgundy from here, but between them, they built a court so powerful it rivalled that of the King of France.
The palace complex you see today grew up around their original residence, and now houses the city’s administrative offices alongside the Museum of Fine Art. The tower itself dates to the 15th century and was named after Philip the Good, the third duke, whose reign marked the peak of Burgundian power and wealth.
Access is by a 45-minute guided tour at specific slots during the day. Booking ahead is worth doing in summer.
The roughly 300-step climb isn’t difficult, and the guide talks through the dynasty’s history at intervals on the way up, so you’re not just counting steps. At the top, the view stretches across the old town’s tiled roofs and church spires, with Liberation Square laid out below.
3. Taste Dijon mustard
You can’t come to Dijon and skip the mustard, even though most of the seed used today is imported rather than grown locally in Burgundy. The city’s reputation for mustard-making goes back to the Middle Ages, and it’s kept that identity even though the raw ingredients now travel farther to get here.
Tastings are usually done standing at a counter rather than sitting down, with several varieties lined up to compare side by side, from the classic sharp Dijon style to versions made with honey, blackcurrant or truffle. Some shops also sell mustard on tap, filled straight into a stoneware jar you can take home and refill later.
I tried far more varieties than I expected to at La Moutarderie Edmond Fallot, and left with two jars. It’s a quick stop that’s worth building into your walking route.
4. Shop for gingerbread
Dijon’s other famous export is pain d’épices, the local spiced gingerbread, which has been made in the city since at least the 19th century. It is lighter than the treacle-heavy gingerbread you may be familiar with, made with honey rather than molasses, and often flavoured with orange peel or aniseed.
A handful of shops in the old town have been making it for generations, using recipes that have barely changed, and it’s sold in everything from plain loaves to small iced biscuits shaped like the city’s owl. I bought mine at Mulot & Petitjean (est. 1796).
It makes a better souvenir than most of what you’ll find in a gift shop, provided you can resist eating it before you get home.
5. Visit the Museum of Fine Art
Housed inside part of the Ducal Palace, the Museum of Fine Art’s collection is arranged chronologically, taking you on a journey from medieval religious art to the 21st century.
The main draw is the ducal tombs, two elaborate stone monuments to Philip the Bold and John the Fearless, carved with rows of mourning figures in painstaking detail. My tip is to see them twice: once at ground level, where you can study the individual mourners up close, then again from the music gallery on the floor above, which lets you look down over the whole hall.
Beyond the tombs, the museum’s collection runs to Flemish and Dutch painting, 19th-century French work, and a modern art wing. Entry is free, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays.
6. Step inside Notre-Dame Church
Notre-Dame dates to the 13th century, and its Gothic facade is arranged in three tiers of small arched columns with an array of gargoyles. None of these 51 decorative figures is original; they were all carved later between 1880 and 1882.
Pick up the free leaflet as you go in, since it points out details you’d otherwise miss.
Inside, the stained glass rose window above the altar is the main feature, throwing colour across the stone in the afternoon light. Find the small carving of a terror-stricken devil by the central portal, his eyes bulging with dread.
7. Make a wish at the owl
On the corner of Notre-Dame, facing the narrow Rue de la Chouette, a small stone owl has been worn smooth by generations of visitors stroking it with their left hand and making a wish. Nobody can say exactly how old the tradition is, but the owl itself has been there since at least the early 1500s.
It’s a two-minute stop, and part of the city’s identity, and it gave the Owl Trail its name.
8. Rest in the garden of Hôtel de Vogüé
Hôtel de Vogüé is a 17th-century mansion, built for a wealthy parliamentary family. It has a distinctive coloured tile roof, in the same Burgundian style you’ll see on grander buildings further out of town.
The building itself is closed to visitors, but the courtyard garden behind it is open and free. It’s a quiet place to sit down for a few minutes between sights, away from the crowds on the main trail.
Since it was close to my accommodation during my visit, it became something of a regular pause between sights.
9. Browse Les Halles Market
Dijon’s covered market was built in the 1870s and still functions as a working food market rather than a tourist attraction dressed up as one. The iron-framed building was designed by the same engineering firm behind the original Les Halles in Paris.
Go in the morning if you can, when the stalls are busiest and the produce is freshest. Cheese, cured meats, local wine and Burgundian specialities like jambon persillé all get a stall here.
It’s a good stop for picking up something to eat on the move, or for buying food to take home if you’re travelling with space in your luggage. There are extra stalls in the surrounding streets on market days (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), so check ahead if you want the full version rather than the smaller weekday market.
10. See Cathedral St Bénigne
Cathedral St Bénigne was built over the tomb of Dijon’s patron saint in the 13th and 14th centuries. Its most distinctive feature from the outside is the tiled roof pattern typical of Burgundian church architecture, similar to the one you’ll see later at the Hospices de Beaune if you take the wine tour.
The crypt beneath the cathedral is older than the building above it, dating back to an earlier Romanesque church on the same site. It’s easy to combine with a visit to the Archaeological Museum next door, since the two share a site and a ticket desk.
Like several churches in Dijon, it closes for a stretch at lunchtime, so time your visit around the morning or mid-afternoon rather than turning up at midday and finding the doors shut.
11. Look around St Michael’s Church
St Michael’s has one of the more striking exteriors in Dijon. Its Renaissance facade, added in the 16th century, is paired, oddly but successfully, with a Gothic interior that predates it by more than a hundred years.
Inside, look out for the relic of St Elisabeth of the Trinity, a Dijon-born Carmelite nun, kept in a golden casket near the altar.
12. Visit the Museum of Burgundian Life
This free museum is easy to miss, and I nearly did. It’s housed in a former convent, and I spent about an hour here.
There’s very little English-language information, but the ground floor doesn’t need much explaining. Dioramas and mannequins in period costume walk you through the stages of rural Burgundian life in the 19th and early 20th centuries, from birth through to death, laid out room by room.
The first floor is where it gets more interesting, with a recreated street of shopfronts furnished with period stock. Its pharmacy was my favourite corner of the whole museum, complete with rows of apothecary jars.
The building itself has a second layer of history, having previously housed a community of nuns, and that history runs alongside that of broader local life. There are also exhibits on the city’s industrial and intellectual life, covering everything from local factories to notable Dijon-born scientists and writers.
Check opening times before you go, since it closes for lunch.
13. See the plaster casts at Musée Rude
Housed in the deconsecrated Church of St Etienne, Musée Rude displays plaster casts of the most famous works by François Rude.
He was the Dijon-born sculptor behind La Marseillaise, one of the four large relief panels on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Seeing the plaster originals here, rather than the finished stone version in Paris, gives you a closer look at the working detail than you’d get from the ground below the arch.
It’s a short visit, no more than fifteen minutes, but an interesting one if you’ve already spotted his statue of a local wine-treader in Place François Rude on your way through the old town.
14. Relax in Darcy Garden
At the northern edge of the old town, near the train station, Darcy Garden opened in 1880 as the city’s first public park and is still a well-used green space rather than a manicured showpiece. It’s a formal garden with fountains, a small lake, ornamental staircases and statues dotted through the paths.
The park’s best-known feature is a large bronze polar bear statue near one of the entrances, a copy of a sculpture found at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and something of a local landmark and photo stop in its own right.
It’s a good place to finish a day of walking before heading back to wherever you’re staying, particularly if your accommodation or the train station is nearby.
15. Take a Burgundy wine tasting tour
Dijon lies at the northern end of the Burgundy wine region, close to the Route des Grands Crus, the wine road that runs south through the Côte d’Or’s most famous vineyard villages. That makes it a natural base for a tasting day, even though the city itself doesn’t grow much wine within its own boundaries.
I joined this small group tour with four other travellers, stopping at two wineries along the route with a lunch break in Beaune, the region’s other major wine town. Each winery stop included a seated tasting of several vintages, with the guide explaining the differences between villages as we went.
It’s the one activity on this list that takes a full day rather than an hour or two. If a full tour doesn’t suit your schedule, a shorter tasting session in a cellar within Dijon itself is also an option, though it won’t include the vineyard scenery.
16. Visit the Archaeological Museum
This one is niche, and I’d only recommend it if you have a real interest in archaeology. It’s housed in the former abbey buildings next to Cathedral St Bénigne, free to enter, takes about 30 minutes, and closes for lunch like several other museums in the city.
Two small rooms cover prehistoric and Neolithic finds from the wider Burgundy region, then Roman-era objects, which were the most interesting part for me. These included decorative floor fragments and everyday items excavated locally, along with a case of weapons from the Carolingian era.
It’s a quiet, low-key stop rather than a headline attraction, and one you could reasonably skip without missing much if your time in Dijon is limited.
One Thing I Skipped: La Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie et du Vin
This one shows up on nearly every list of things to do in Dijon, so it’s worth explaining why it isn’t on mine. It’s a large complex built on the site of a former hospital, combining shops, restaurants, a cinema and a wine school under one roof, and it’s been marketed heavily since it opened as a flagship attraction for the city.
Several locals I spoke to described it as an overpriced tourist attraction built more for coach parties than for the community it’s meant to serve, with prices and a layout that felt closer to an airport shopping mall than anywhere they’d choose to spend their own time.
I took that seriously enough to leave it out of my own itinerary. I can’t review a place I didn’t go into, but I’d rather tell you why it’s missing than pretend it wasn’t a deliberate choice.
If You Only Have One Day in Dijon
If your visit is limited to a single day, here’s what I’d do in Dijon, in the order I’d tackle it, built from the activities above. I’ve also pulled these together in a one-day Dijon itinerary.
- Follow the Owl Trail. At a leisurely pace, it takes a few hours at most and introduces you to the main attractions of the old town.
- Climb the Tower of Philip the Good. Book your guided slot ahead of time so it fits neatly into the middle of the day
- Visit Notre-Dame Church. Take in the gargoyles on the exterior on your way in, then make a wish by stroking the owl’s head on the corner outside.
- Browse Les Halles. A good stop for lunch or something to eat on the move.
- Visit a museum or two of your choice. The Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Burgundian Life and Musée Rude are all realistic options for an afternoon, depending on what’s open and how much time you have left.
- Shop for mustard and gingerbread. Save this for last so you’re not carrying jars and boxes around all day.
Planning Your Visit
Getting to Dijon
Dijon-Ville station is a short walk from the old town, making arriving by train the simplest option.
- From Paris Gare de Lyon: fastest TGV trains take around 1 hour 35 minutes
- From Lyon: fastest trains take 1 hour 25 minutes
- From Beaune: around 25 minutes, making a day trip in either direction easy
The closest airport is Lyon-Saint Exupéry, though most visitors combine Dijon with a wider trip through France or Switzerland by rail rather than flying in directly. I came from Chur in Switzerland, after travelling the Bernina Express route by local trains from Tirano.
Getting around Dijon
You won’t need public transport for anything on this list. The old town is small and mostly pedestrianised, and everything from the Ducal Palace to the churches and museums is within a fifteen-minute walk of the centre.
Where to stay
Stay inside the old town for walking distance to everything on this list, or near Darcy Garden if you want easy access to the train station.
I stayed at La Maisonnette – Hypercentre – Movie Theater, an unusual property in a superb location, a stone’s throw from the much-stroked owl. It might not be to everyone’s tastes – I’m not sure it was the right choice for me – and Les Suites by Cave Vauban, by Liberation Place, is a good alternative.
If you prefer a hotel stay, Maison Philippe Le Bon Hôtel is another centrally-located option with a courtyard bar and restaurant. Grand Hôtel La Cloche faces Jardin Darcy and is a better option if you want to stay nearer the train station.
Where to eat
Here are a few places I tried and would return to in a heartbeat:
La Fine Heure – I had one of my best French meals ever at this farm-to-table bistro, trying the snails and Beef Bourguignon.
Le Bouchon du Palais – A traditional restaurant, serving Burgundian and Lyon specialities. Order the Coq au Vin.
Chez Copains – A friendly bistro opposite Les Halles. Try their melt-in-the-mouth veal.
Tips for Visiting Dijon
- Buy the Owl Trail booklet from the tourist office on Rue des Forges rather than relying on the app.
- Check opening times before visiting the smaller museums, since several close for an hour or more at lunch.
- Wear comfortable shoes. The old town’s cobbled streets take their toll over a full day of walking.
- Book a wine tour in advance if you’re visiting in summer.
- Visit Les Halles market in the morning, before the best stalls sell out.
Where to Next?
Lyon is an easy day trip from Dijon (I have put together this one-day itinerary). If you’re building out a wider trip through eastern France, Reims is a natural next stop, with its cathedral and a chance to tour the champagne houses.
I used a train pass on this trip, and I also have a beginner’s guide to Interrail and advice on working out if Interrail will be worth it for you.
Finally, if you’re travelling alone, my solo travel guide to France has useful planning tips.
Happy travels!
About Bridget
Bridget Coleman has been a passionate traveller for more than 30 years. She has visited 70+ countries, most as a solo traveller.
Articles on this site reflect her first-hand experiences.
To get in touch, email her at hello@theflashpacker.net or follow her on social media.