The short version
- Dijon is 1 hour 35 from Paris Gare de Lyon by direct TGV, about ten a day, with nothing direct between the 7:56 and the 12:22; the last one back leaves Dijon at 20:27 and is in Paris at 22:08. Beaune is 18 to 30 minutes further by TER, 45 trains a day, and its station is a 15-minute walk from the Hôtel-Dieu.
- Our Burgundy Day Tour meets at the Saint-Bénigne church, a block and a half from Dijon station, off the early TGV: a tasting workshop, a grand house such as Bouchard or a Meursault estate, lunch at a winery, the Romanée-Conti vineyard for a photograph, and a family domaine, ten wines in all, back in Dijon for the direct evening train, $300 per person, Tuesday to Saturday from April to November, eight guests.
- The Hôtel-Dieu, the hospital Nicolas Rolin founded in 1443, is open every day of the year, 9:00 to 19:30 from April to mid-November and with a lunch break in winter; €12.50 with the handset commentary included, under-6s free. The polychrome tiled roofs are inside the courtyard, so the ticket is the only way to see them.
- Beaune is the town for tasting without a car: Patriarche’s five kilometers of cellars under the old convent, six wines for €25 with walk-in slots at a quarter past and a quarter to the hour, and the Marché aux Vins opposite the Hôtel-Dieu, five wines for €25 online or €29 at the door, both daily with a break at lunch. Weekends fill.
- The Château du Clos de Vougeot, the Cistercians’ 12th-century press house inside the walled grand cru, is €12, 9:30 to 18:00 from April to October and 10:00 to 17:00 in winter; its station, Vougeot-Gilly, is a 22-minute walk away. Romanée-Conti, the 1.8-hectare wall in Vosne-Romanée, has no station, no visits and no tastings; you stand at the marker.
- The Hospices wine auction, the 166th, runs November 13 to 15, 2026, with the sale itself on Sunday afternoon in the Halles, trade only, shown on a screen outside; the 2025 sale raised €18.75 million. Hotels book out months ahead, and the 2026 crop, picked from August 13 after the earliest harvest in nearly 500 years, is a third down across Burgundy.
What to see
The Hôtel-Dieu was a working hospital until 1971, and the Salle des Pôvres still has its painted beams and the curtained beds in two rows down the walls. Beyond it are the kitchens, the pharmacy and Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgment, painted for the chapel around 1445; a restoration of the polyptych has been announced without dates. The Hospices own 60 hectares of vines, and the November sale of their wine has paid for the place since 1859. The visit takes about an hour; the courtyard is cobbled. Our two-night trip includes it on the Côte de Beaune day.
Beaune inside its ramparts is a small town of wine houses, the Collégiale Notre-Dame with its tapestries of the Virgin, place Carnot, and the Saturday market on place de la Halle until 13:00. The Cité des Climats et Vins, 25 minutes on foot from the station, is €14.50 with a tasting, daily 10:00 to 18:00; the Musée du Vin in the dukes’ old house is closed for now; the Fallot mustard mill on the faubourg Bretonnière is the last one in town. The tourist office has two desks, at the Porte Marie de Bourgogne on boulevard Perpreuil and opposite the Hôtel-Dieu.
The Route des Grands Crus runs 60 kilometers from Dijon to Santenay, signed since 1937 with brown panels and a white bunch of grapes, through 37 villages and 32 grands crus: the Côte de Nuits for the reds, Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, Vosne-Romanée and Nuits-Saint-Georges, then the Côte de Beaune, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny and Chassagne-Montrachet, where the great whites grow. UNESCO listed the 1,247 named plots, the climats, in 2015. At the Clos de Vougeot the Conférie des Chevaliers du Tastevin has held its chapters since 1944; guided tours in English are offered at 11:30 and 15:30 from April to October, by arrangement, and the château closes on December 24, 25 and 31 and January 1.
Dijon is the dukes’ capital and the station for all of this. The Palais des Ducs holds the Musée des Beaux-Arts, free, closed Tuesday, with the tombs of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless and their weeping mourners, and the 1433 kitchens; the Tour Philippe le Bon climbs 316 steps to 46 meters, from €6, in groups of 18 from 10:30. Rub the owl on the north side of Notre-Dame with your left hand. The Cité de la Gastronomie, ten minutes from the station, is free to enter. Our overnight trip sleeps at the Maison Philippe Le Bon on rue Sainte-Anne.
Burgundy is two grapes, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, named by plot rather than by château, and the ladder runs grand cru, premier cru, village, regional; Aligoté goes under the cassis in a kir. Eat bœuf bourguignon, œufs en meurette, escargots, jambon persillé and gougères, with Époisses after, and pain d’épices from Dijon.
Getting there and around
The direct TGVs leave Paris Gare de Lyon for Dijon at 6:52 and 7:56, then not again until 12:22, with afternoon and evening departures through to 20:22; the slow trains from Bercy take about three hours. Coming back, TGVs leave Dijon at 16:59, 18:02, 18:28, 19:06 and 20:27. Beaune is 18 to 30 minutes from Dijon by TER, the last one up at 22:12 and the last one back at 21:58; from Beaune to Paris, the 17:58 TER connects to the 18:28 TGV, and the 19:58 reaches Dijon ten minutes before the 20:27, a change SNCF does not sell as one ticket. Saint-Bénigne church, where our day meets, is a block and a half from Dijon station.
In Beaune everything is on foot: the station is 15 minutes from the Hôtel-Dieu and the cellars, and the two tourist offices, Patriarche and the Marché aux Vins are all inside the ring boulevards. The villages are another matter. A regional coach links Dijon, Nuits-Saint-Georges and Beaune, local lines reach Pommard, Volnay and Meursault on a thin timetable with some runs on request only, and no bus we could find serves Vosne-Romanée or Vougeot. Meursault’s station is 2 kilometers from the village; Nuits and Gevrey have stations on the Dijon line.
The Voie des Vignes is the bike route, 81 kilometers of vineyard lanes shared with the growers’ tractors: Beaune to Santenay, 22 kilometers through Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny and Chassagne, and Beaune to Nuits-Saint-Georges, 24 kilometers, with false flats that turn into hills. Many TER trains carry bikes free. Our e-bike day does the Côte de Beaune lanes with a guide, lunch and seven or more tastings, and a van if it rains.
The private Burgundy day is $710 with a two-person minimum, with a trained oenologist, 16 wines including eight premier and grand crus, and pickup at Dijon TGV station. The Overnight Burgundy Tour, $575, adds a night at the Maison Philippe Le Bon in Dijon and a free second day for the Hospices. The Two Nights in Burgundy, from $925 per person, is based in Beaune with pickups at your hotel at 9:15: the Côte de Nuits with the Clos de Vougeot one day, the Hospices and the Côte de Beaune the next, six domaines in all.
When to go
Our day tours run Tuesday to Saturday from April to November, the e-bike Monday to Saturday from April to October, and the winter by request. The vines are bare from November to March, green from May and gold in the last weeks of October; the cellars stay at 10 to 12 degrees in every month. The harvest is normally September; in 2026 it began on August 13.
The auction weekend, November 13 to 15, 2026, is the Trois Glorieuses: the Tastevin chapter at the Clos de Vougeot on Saturday, the sale and the gala in the Bastion on Sunday, and the Paulée at the Château de Meursault on Monday. The houses sell special tastings that weekend, Patriarche ten wines for €70, the Marché aux Vins six for €59, and the hotels go months ahead; unless you are in the trade, Laura’s advice is to come another week. The Saint-Vincent Tournante moves to Volnay on January 30 and 31, 2027, with a €20 kit of glass, map and eight tasting tickets and shuttles from Beaune station.
From November 16 to March 31 the Hôtel-Dieu closes from 12:30 to 14:00, the Clos de Vougeot shuts at 17:00 and on December 24, 25 and 31 and January 1, and the Marché aux Vins and the Cité des Climats close from January 5 to 18. The Dijon museums close on Tuesday.
Burgundy is continental: cold winters with a wind off the plateau, hot summers, and the best weeks in September and October when the vines turn. Beaune’s Saturday market runs all year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Burgundy a day trip from Paris?
Yes. The TGV reaches Dijon in 1 hour 35, on the 6:52 or the 7:56, with nothing direct again until 12:22, and the last train back leaves Dijon at 20:27. By train alone that buys you Beaune on foot and two cellars. The villages, the grand houses and the Romanée-Conti wall need a car, which is what our day is: the early train out, the van between, and the evening train home.
Can you visit the vineyards without a car?
Some of it. The Clos de Vougeot is a TER to Vougeot-Gilly and a 22-minute walk; Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin have stations; Meursault’s is 2 kilometers out; the local buses to Pommard, Volnay and Meursault are thin and some run only on request. By bike, the Voie des Vignes links the Côte de Beaune villages. What you give up is the domaines that only open to a booked group, lunch at a winery, and the ten wines in one day; our van covers both Côtes between the trains.
Beaune or Dijon?
Dijon has the direct TGV, the dukes’ palace and free museums, and is where our day tour starts and the overnight trip sleeps. Beaune, 20 minutes further, has the Hôtel-Dieu, the walk-in cellars and the auction, and is where our two-night trip is based. For a day, start in Dijon; for a stay, sleep in Beaune.
When is the Hospices de Beaune auction?
The third Sunday of November: November 15, 2026, with the festivities from the 13th. The sale is for the trade and runs on a screen on place de la Halle for everyone else. Book a hotel months ahead or come the week after, when the cellars are quiet again.
Is there a tour from Paris?
Yes. Our Burgundy Day Tour is $300, or $471 with second-class rail, Tuesday to Saturday from April to November, eight guests, lunch at a winery included. The private day is $710 with 16 wines, the e-bike day $295, the Overnight Burgundy Tour $575 with a night in Dijon, and Two Nights in Burgundy from $925 per person in Beaune with six domaines, the Clos de Vougeot and the Hospices.
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