Dijon: know before you go

Dijon has no scheduled airline service of its own: the aerodrome at Ouges is built around business and private aviation, and the tourist office's arrival guide works by train, car and coach. Almost every visit starts at Dijon-Ville, the station at the top edge of the centre, where tram line T1 begins and the walk into the old town starts. The main hall opens before dawn and closes after 11 p.m., the TER and mainline sales desks sit inside, and taxis wait on the forecourt, where a small food market sets up each Thursday. Everything past that, high-speed tickets between cities and how to book them, belongs to the France country guide.

Dijon's old town is best seen on foot. The old town is compact, its streets are partly pedestrianised or traffic-calmed, and the walks on this site link up on foot without any transport. For the wider métropole, the Divia network runs trams and buses on a simple, cheap fare system: load a pass in advance for the best price, or tap a contactless bank card and pay a flat €2 for an hour. Validate at every boarding, including when you change vehicles, since the clock starts at first validation. Machines at every tram station sell passes around the clock, and the Divia agency at 16 place Darcy is staffed Monday to Saturday. The DiviaCity electric shuttle is free, runs Monday to Saturday from 8:00 to 19:00 every ten minutes, and links the centre with the tram lines. Bikes round it out: DiviaVélodi self-service bikes run from stations across the centre.

The money details that matter in Dijon are local ones. The city's municipal museums have charged nothing for their permanent collections since 2004, which means the ducal tombs inside the Beaux-Arts and the archaeology collections are free to see; only the Beaux-Arts temporary exhibitions take a ticket, at €9 full price and €5 reduced. Accommodation bills carry a local tourist tax that Dijon Métropole uses to fund tourism promotion and visitor facilities, collected by your host. And keep coins if you might buy a tram fare from the driver: on-board sales are cash only.

Dijon's historic centre is busy, well lit and comfortable to walk, and the routes on this site keep to streets with people and open shopfronts. The practical safety notes are small. Validate your tram ticket at every boarding, because inspectors do check and fines apply. Keep an ordinary eye on bags where crowds press together, around the station and inside the market halls. For anything short of an emergency, the municipal police take non-urgent calls on 03 80 74 51 53 from 13 rue Victor Dumay, and the town hall switchboard is 03 80 74 51 51. Emergency numbers in France are national; the country guide lists them.

Dijon runs its own app, OnDijon, and it is worth installing before you arrive: it carries real-time alerts about weather, park closures and transport changes, and it takes reports about problems in public spaces. For transit, the DiviaMobilités app sells and reloads tram and bus tickets, so you can board without queueing at a machine. Between those two apps, most of what a short visit needs from a phone is covered.

In Dijon, French is the everyday language of shops, markets and cafés, and a few words carry you a long way. Say 'bonjour' before any question, add 's'il vous plaît' and 'merci', and close with 'au revoir' on the way out; the greeting sets the tone for everything after it. At the Halles centrales, point and use 'je voudrais' (I would like), then 'un peu' or 'un peu plus' if you want the vendor to pick and adjust. You can manage in English at the tourist office and museum desks, but opening in French is the courtesy that makes the switch easy. The city's names are worth practising aloud: Notre-Dame, Saint-Bénigne, la Chouette.

Dijon's centre is flat, and its public transport is built for step-free travel: every tram station has a raised, level platform, and the buses are low-floor with ramps for boarding. Tactile floor markings at tram stations and many bus stops, large-print line maps and audible ticket terminals help blind and partially sighted riders. Park-and-ride sites with lifts run around the clock, and street parking is free for holders of mobility-inclusion cards. The museums add their own touches: the Beaux-Arts has a first-floor tactile room where you can handle replicas of sculpture, the ground-floor Échansonnerie offers a rest space on the visiting route, and the archaeological museum keeps a reading rest area upstairs. If you arrive by train with reduced mobility, ask about the station's assistance services, and check live lift and escalator status before you travel.

Plan Dijon around the market's calendar and the museums'. The Halles market trades on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings, and the municipal museums close every Tuesday and on a list of public holiday dates. That makes Tuesday the day to avoid if museums are your goal, and Thursday, Friday or Saturday the sure slot for these walks: the market is running, the Beaux-Arts and the smaller museums are open, and the antique dealers of the old quarter are at their windows, since they tend to keep Sunday and Monday closed. From November 2 to March 31 the archaeology museum drops to a Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday schedule, and its Benedictine dormitory stays shut for works. In very hot spells, expect the Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne to switch to morning opening; and on the third Sunday of most months, the Brocante du Vieux Dijon fills the antique lanes.

Book ahead for the crypt under Saint-Bénigne cathedral: it is shown only on a guided visit, at three in the afternoon, and costs €5, so it is a reservation rather than a drop-in. Book it by phone with the Saint-Bénigne parish on 03 80 30 39 33. The one other visit to book is the climb of the Tour Philippe le Bon, the ducal palace's 316-step tower: tours take 18 people at most, cost €6, and are booked only through the tourist office on 03 80 44 11 44. Everything else on these routes is walk-in. The Owl's Trail needs only its booklet, sold at the tourist office from €4, and the museums take visitors without booking. The exception worth watching is a headline temporary exhibition at the Beaux-Arts, the city's only paid museum ticket and the only museum queue likely to form.