RIP Lauren Bacall - one of the most elegant, sultry, stylish and beautiful stars of all...and definitely one of the coolest ever. You will be greatly missed...you were absolutely sensational. And you are definitely one of my favourites.
Today's post will be centred around the Palais de Ducs du Bourgogne. Apart from climbing the Tower of Philip the Good, we managed to explore other parts of the palace, including the Musee de Beaux-Arts, which is house within the palace itself.
Decided to repost some of the palace pics - just for the sake of it. :)
Detailed motifs depicting science, art and power during historical times - these were found on one of the entrances to the palace.
And of course, some of the details on the Tower of Philip the Good building just couldn't be missed.
Entry to the Musee des Beaux-Arts was free, from what I remember. The first place we entered was the ducal tomb - this was an open compound with the tombs of Philip the Bold, John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria. At the foot of the tombs were "weepers" - intricate detailing of religious figures amidst even more intricate columns. I took one of the pics from the second floor (to get an overview of the whole area), and one from the ground floor, where the tombs were.
The Musee des Beaux-Arts had 3 floors, and we managed to cover most of what we wanted to see, before the museum was closed for the day.
Some of the artefacts from the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Most of them were sculptures, but there were also other everyday items like jewellery boxes, pins and all.
Of course, there were also religious artefacts, and oh my, some of these were so amazing! I can't imagine the amount of time, effort and concentration required to construct these! Some of these were made from metals, while others were made of either marble or ivory. Nevertheless, they were so beautiful. It took me some time to figure out the best angle to take a pic...but even so, they look much, much, much better in real life.
We also entered a hall full of sculptures, in a burgundy-themed room...I believe this colour scheme was deliberate. This was one of my favourite places within the museum, as it was so open and so bright...and of course, burgundy's one of my favourite colours! My phone cover, camera and laptop are burgundy (not the same shade though - my laptop's a dark shade of burgundy while my phone cover's a lighter shade). It was pretty cool - walking around Dijon with a burgundy camera...considering that Dijon was in the Burgundy region of France!
Went back down to the ground floor - but as we were going down the stairs, I spotted some detailing on the ceiling. Needless to say, I had to stop and take a look!
Entered another room full of sculptures. Didn't have much time to look at each of them in detail (though I wish I could!) as the museum was closing for the day. Nevertheless, I managed to get some pics!
Walked out into a courtyard, which had a small cafe on one side. The entrance to the museum was on one end of the courtyard, and the exit was on another end. From the museum, we could actually see the courtyard from the windows!
Here's the bell tower and the Bellegarde Staircase...
And there was also a small well tucked away in one of the corners. It was quite conspicuous though.
Went out through yet another corridor, and ended up in this small garden, with a stone sculpture of Philip the Good. I usually went through this garden and the abovementioned courtyard when I was walking to my conference venue. In fact, the palace was a really good shortcut and landmark for me, as I'd go wandering in the smaller streets, and would always look out for the palace in order to get my bearings right. By the time the conference ended, I was really really familiar with this part of the city.
We also managed to pay a quick visit to St Michel's Church, located right at the end of the street. It's about 5 minutes away from the palace, and coincidentally my conference venue was right next to the palace! So it was really convenient! I posted a few pics of the Grand Theatre (my conference venue) towards the end of one of the previous posts.
St Michel's Church in Rue Vaillant - in its full glory. It's actually situated in the middle of a roundabout, which added on to its magnificence. The front facade of the church (from where I was) was built in Renaissance style, but with some Gothic touches to it. Here we go - one zoomed-in pic, and two wide-angled pics...
Statue of St Michel right on the central porch, surrounded by lots of intricate details.
And of course, I had to zoom in to have a closer look at some of the details...imagine how much time and effort was spent to do all these!
In the foreground - the "neighbouring" St Stephen's Church, which has been the headquarters for the Chamber of Commerce since 1896. St Stephen's Church is even older than St Michel's Church - it was built in the mid 11th century! There were some lovely flowers at the side facing the Grand Theatre...and so I took a quick pic of it...
More Dijon city pics coming up soon! I'm gonna feature quite a number of half-timber houses in the next post or so!