Dijon & Parc National des Forêts

Dijon & Parc National des Forêts day trip  (29 March 2022) =  No. 7

How did I end up visiting Parc National des Forêts? 

Time is running out, the MBA is coming to an end soon. But the weather and the snow at highland still do not permit a visit to moutain range national park. 

The only remaining national park that I can visit, is the Forêts (forest). It is not a highland, and there is no risk of avalance. 

With a free day between meetings in the final week of March, I bought my train ticket in advance. After much research, the closest train station is Dijon. 

The trip highlights 

Parc National des Forêts is the latest annexed French National Park, back in 2019. It is less popular as compared to the other national parks.  Due to its lack of popularity, write up on this park is quite limited in the internet. 

The alltrails website is one of the main reference I have. 

https://www.alltrails.com/parks/france/haute-marne/parc-national-de-forets

Other than the Calanques and Port Cros, for all the national parks I had visited, I always opted for self driving from either the closest airport/ train station. I tried to keep my budget low for this trip. Hence, I opted for public transports.  I read from a website, bus 54 serves the route from the Dijon de Gare to the national park. And I assumed the frequency of the bus will be as good as frequency of the metro in Paris. 

I left my AirBnb pretty early on the 29th March to Gare de Lyon. From Gare de Lyon, I took the train at 7.56a.m., where its final destination was Lausanne. The fast speed train took around 1.5 hours to reach Dijon. 

The challenge started once I arrived at Gare de Dijon.  

1. There was no bus serving line 54.
2. The Tourist office is not open from Monday to Wednesday

The front desk officers in the Gare office is probably my best source of reference. I went over to the office, and learned from her that Bus no. 124 is the new number for the previous Bus no. 54. 

With this info in hand, I went over to the nearby bus station. I can't believe what I saw. The next available bus was at 12.20pm, nearly 3 hours away. 

From the pamplet that I obtained, the bus will take 1.5 hours to reach Chatillon where the national park is partly located. It is a big risk to maintain my 6pm return train from Dijon, as there was limited returning bus from Chatilon, with only 2 runs, one at 2.30pm and the last one at 5.05pm. 

I have another option though. I can opt for instant car rental at the Dijon station. I quickly went over to the car rental counters to enquire. It turned out the cheapest car rental would cost me 67Euro for a short 7 hours use (well, to be fair to them, they counted it as 1 day rental), not inclusive of the fuel. 

I took cost, and the possibility of fatigue after hiking into consideration. I sticked with the plan of using public bus. A big of alteration was done, i.e. changing my return train ticket to a later time (9pm), and paid a fee of 15Euro for the change. 

So, I had a good 2.5 hours to explore Dijon. 

I didn't want to take a risk of missing the bus at 12.20pm. I was back to the bus station by 12pm. FInally, the bus came, and happily i hopped in, and paid 1.50Euro for the ticket. (Yeah, you read it right, it's only 1.5 Euro, for a journey of 1.5 hours). 

The ride was a pleasant one, passing through country side, farms and small villages. 

Finally, I arrived Gare de Chatillon. Another challenge popped up. The nearest trail starting point is at least 1 hour away. 

With limited time, I picked the shortest trail, which started near the Saint Vincent Church at Massingy, Cote-d'Or. To reach this trail, there is a one hour walk from the bus station, passing through many farms along an old rail way. 

Finally, I was standing by the side of the Saint Vincent Church. I quickly started my ultra short hike at the trail starting from 300m away from this church.  

It was a uphill hike through a small forest. 15 minutes into the hike, I arrived at a open space, that offers an aerial view of the surrounding village. 

I spent not longer than 40 minutes for this trail, and decided to turn back and proceed to the station. It was another 1 hour walk back to the station. 

As per plan, the bus came at 5.05pm, and the ride back to Dijon took close to 2hours. 

At Dijon, I took my dinner at an Asia restaurant. After the dinner, i dragged my fatigued body back to Gare de Dijon, and took the 9pm train back to Paris. 

My transports and F&B 

Transports – This is a low budget trip, with 100% public transport mode. 

Paris Gare De Lyon - Gare De Dijon return ticket = 60Euro +15Euro  (change fee) 

Mobigo bus ticket x 2 = 1.5Euro x 2 = 3Euro

F&B – 

Lunch at Dijon McDonald = 5.80Euro

Dinner at Saveurs d Asie = 16Euro (with crevette and porc)

My 3 Plus and 2 Minus:-

3 things I like about this trip: 

1. A day trip done below 100Euro (1.50Euro bus ticket!)
2. Dijon is a suprisingly lovely ville, not populous, decent pace
3. Palais des ducs et des États de Bourgogne
   
   

2 thing I would do differently if I can turn back the clock: 

1. Find out more on the bus schedule and not making any assumption.  (for those of you who want to visit to the park, find out the schedule at www.viamobigo.fr)
2. The trail that I went, is no where close to all the trails that I have made in the past. I believe Forêts has many other beautiful trails to offer. And again, I would definitely do a better planning if i come back for another time. 

Surprise learnings of the trip 

1. There is always a trade off for decision we take. I decided to go low on budget, and compromised the available time spent at the park. I guess there is no right or wrong, but what is important is be aware of what we are compromising when we make a decision.