May 23-5

There is this great calendar of all the medieval fairs in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

I choose a weekend then find the nearest fair. This time I could go a little further afield as it was a long weekend. I decided to check out Semur en Auxois.

It is kind of Dijon direction then south a bit. A typical medieval village on the edge of a kink in the river, Semur itself is quite picturesque. This weekend it was filled with activities and life, as one of the best medieval fairs I have found so far, wound its way along the narrow streets.

I guess what was great about it was that there were heaps of activities for kids to do, and some interesting and unusual stalls.

Best of all for me, there were concerts. A few street musicians, but really the highlights were the concerts in the church. The first concert I attended was singing, which was lovely.

But it was the second concert that got me SO excited I could burst! A wonderful wonderful group of musicians from Dijon, playing all sizes of recorders, crumhorns, cornetti, viol de gamba and singing as well. They even had, not just bass recorders, not even just contra-basses, but SUB-contra bass recorders. And I say to you... YES that is a plural. They have TWO SUB-CONTRA-BASS RECORDERS. WOW. I mean. WOW. I was just floored. I sat there gazing torn between jealousy and an overwhelming desire to rush up to them to beg to let me play.

After the concert I did approach them, and explained that I am a musician who hasn't been able to find a group of early music musicians here in Geneva; they kindly said that I could come visit them in Dijon. Yay! I am SO going to go visit them.

I decided not to stay in Semur for the evening, but to head out to Dijon. On the way I visited the town of Flavigny. I briefly considered staying there but decided to go on. It is a cute village with a medieval heart, but very very small. One of the 15th/16th century houses is for sale... tempting...

I found myself a pretty cheap hotel in Dijon and crashed for the night. Not a bad little hotel actually... must remember its name.

I was pleased to get a chance to visit the Musee des Beaux Artes in Dijon again, to snap some better shots of particular things I photographed very badly on a previous visit.