Brazey-en-Plaine - Dijon

On a beautiful early spring morning and for the first time in over 20 years, I took the little country train into Dijon. The countryside could not have been more ravishing with the fields of colza just coming into flower and the lilac on the point of bursting into bloom. When I first took the train the ticket office was still in action and one took the level crossing to move from one platform to another. The ticket office and the level crossing have long since gone, replaced by a machine and a subway, and the train no longer stops at the unofficial halt in Longvic where I would alight on my way to work, but otherwise little has changed. The passengers, though obviously older, were the same smiling people that I remembered: buxom countrywomen with baskets of fresh vegetables for the markets of Dijon. Well, that last bit is not quite true, but everyone seemed happy and contented, and I noticed that no-one was in any hurry to leave their seat before the train came to a halt in Dijon - in marked contrast to the TGV where people start clambering to their feet long before the station draws near.