Dijon to Strasbourg

Where are the charming travelers who, in years past, would share my little 6-passenger 1st Class compartment? Not on this leg of the journey. No-one to share greasy dried sausage or tales of misfortune during the last stopover. I speed through the landscape of eastern France following the German border. The last station was Belfort. I had spent a night or two there in the ‘60s when I visited Le Corbusier’s Ronchap, in a nearby village.

I’m surprised by the amount of corn that grows in fields along the tracks – not only here but between Avignon and Dijon. I was surprised to learn that mustard seed is no longer grown in France but is imported from Saskatchewan – it is far too valuable to use the land to grow grapes. Yesterday’s visit to the Mustard Museum (in the Amora plant) taught me at least that. It appears, although it was certainly not stressed, that the basic mustard mix which is elaborated to produce the famous Maille brand (for 20 years merged with the more mass-market Amora brand) gets shipped out to another factory in the outskirts of Dijon while the Amora mix receives a bit more fine tuning and is bottled right there. The Maille factory takes the same basic mix and adds it's own blend of spices and other flavorings.

The train follows a series of canals. Their locks appear to be miniature versions of the ones I passed through in Panama a few years ago. The train from Paris to Sète was a TGV. In the snack bar, they displayed the current speed. Two little boys cheered when we moved faster than 240 km / hr and booed when we slowed down. My current train is the old-fashioned sort and unlike the split-level TGVs (where First Class was on the lower level and you saw little of the landscape), I am enjoying the landscape speed by. Strasbourg in an hour.