Itinerary input requested - what's good around Dijon (can you get to Fr Riviera from there?)

Nice is very far, about 3 hours beyond the Rhone valley. Given your time frame, I'd suggest Arles, flying to London from Marseilles.

If you want more Paris time, add it to the front of your trip.

Saulieu is pretty remote--it's in the Morvan. To get there, or indeed anyplace smaller than Beaune, you will need a car.

Rail connections from the region to Provence are good. And to the region from Paris. I would take advantage of these rather than driving all the way, which would eat up a lot of your trip. But you might consider renting a second car in Provence.

We stayed in Beaune and really enjoyed it. It's a small(er) town, but big enough to have shops, restaurants, wine tasting rooms, etc. You can stay a few days in the town or you can get bikes and ride out into the country. We had a rental car and drove around to the various wineries, following the paths described in the RS book. We drove ourselves down to Provence and stayed in L'Isle sur la Sorgue and it took a little over four hours or so. Based on where we wanted to visit in Provence, we're glad we had the car to get around to smaller towns and not have to rely on public transportation -- but it is possible to use trains/buses to visit the larger towns.

During our trip to France summer of 2016, we stayed in Asnieres les Dijon, a small but quaint and very friendly town 5 miles north of Dijon. Our bed and breakfast place was terrific (Chambres d'Hôtes la Coline de Dijon). It has a separate kitchen and dining area dedicated to guest use, and the owners were extremely friendly and helpful. The wife (Chantal) speaks English well. We enjoyed day trips to Beaune (30 miles away) and to Dijon, where we enjoyed the historical areas. We found the website http://www.chambres-hotes.fr to be very helpful when we were making plans to stay in bed and breakfasts in France; one can change to English on the website.