Dijon à la derniere fois

Our journey back to Dijon ended in a series of holding pattern runs that might have discouraged a dam buster bomber as we tried to aim for La Gare (Avis bay). We turned a logical left instead of an illogical right a couple of kms out of town when the road was barred with signs indicating either choice would be accepted by the barrers, but alas the left directions quickly evaporated and Jane (our GPS voice lady) was adamant that we should drive up the closed road. The target was eventually successfully reached after several evasive manoeuvres.
A compensation for this is that our hotel is in a very quiet street- it is dug up for its entire not inconsiderable length, and so there is no traffic, and today, no workers. See photo.
We spent our day walking among three free museums: cyclists please note the artistic pièce de resistance. We would have gone to a fourth, recommended by the Bureau de Tourisme, "Moses Well", but we found it deep inside a psychiatric hospital in an unmarked position, so we turned back.
Last dinner was at Moulin à Vent, at the head of Rue Forges, where we had trad burgundian fare and a half bottle of Gevrey Chambertin.

Nuits St Georges et al

Our holiday is coming to an end and there is little time left to see the sights. Today, however we went to that wonderful wine town of Nuits St Georges. We found it to be very touristy so we walked around it a couple of times, had lunch at the ominously named Eden Pizzeria and then took a drive through the hills to Ternant or rather Hameau de Rolle where there is a rustic restaurant called la ferme de Rolle where we thought we might try out tomorrow. We decided not to but the drive was beautiful, through undulating hills with trees changing to their autumn colours. It was a completely different Burgundy and well worth the visit. The drive back took us through a town called Boulliand which is also rustic and has nothing to recommend it other than it's narrow streets and a very expensive restaurant. As we came closer to Villers la Faye the view of vines on the hillside was amazing to our eyes. We stopped to get a better view. There were vines in very straight rows on either side of a small valley. These vines were the straightest most disciplined plants we have ever seen - not a leaf out place. The rows went vertically and horizontally along the hillside and created a beautiful picture. Five minutes later saw us draw into the driveway of our gite. Now night has fallen and we have watched the clearest sunset we have seen in the area.
The photo of Nuits Saint Georges from a hill above shows a refined church building. The only other town feature besides its vineyards is a beffroi completed in 1619, now sporting a clock with carillon that plays a charming tune before the clock chimes.
We returned briefly to the town for provisions on Friday, and spent the rest of the day strolling and reading.

Venturing out

Today we drove to Autun which is a town about an hours drive from our wonderful little gite. As we drove we noticed a great change in the countryside from the gentle hills of the wine country and the myriad of vines covering them, to the rolling hills of farmland and the beautiful white cows that call this area home. As we neared Autun, the hills became more treed and rather picture postcard idyllic. It was a wonderful drive and the town was also picturesque as we drove into it. It sits on a hillside with the cathedral at its highest point so it stands out against the landscape.
We parked and walked to the centre of town which was a very open area, originally the champs de mars where armies may have camped and later the town common where the farmers grazed their cattle.
All this activity required sustenance so a coffee and a planning session brought forward decisions about our plan of action.
We proceeded on foot to a remnant of the Porte d'Arroux and then the temple of "Janus" (wrongly named- it's Gallic) from the first century. It was a pleasant walk and a beautiful setting with great views of the town behind it.
From there we walked back into the town and up to the cathedral which was like most of the churches in Burgundy, very large and imposing from the outside and fairly mundane inside.
From there we went back to the car and drove to a roman amphitheatre where we found a wonderful juxtaposition of the ruin of the amphitheatre with young men doing soccer training in what would have been the arena. The French are fabulous at using what others have left behind for the benefit of the current generations.
Our drive home took us on the same road as we came but we stopped at Pommard to sample the local wines and to make a purchase. Our short stay in this village was punctuated by three young soldiers standing next to our car smoking. Not very interesting? They were English soldiers. I wonder what they were doing touring the French countryside and buying wine for that's what they'd been doing!
In the evening we went back to Beaune for dinner in a restaurant suggested by the owner of our gite. A slow relaxed meal and a wonderful evening was had by us. Tony started with the inevitable escargots and Wendy with fois gras. Both of us then had a charolais steak, possibly the most meltingly wonderful piece of meat we've ever had, accompanied by an assortment of vegetables. The cheese course was irresistible, one of the cheeses being called Epoisses which is banned from being carried on public transport in France because of it's pungency. It is a local Burgundean cheese from the village of that name and well loved. It was good as were the other two on the platter. Dessert was an assortment of tastes being cassis sorbet, white chocolate mousse, poached pineapple and a creme brûlée. To drink there was a cremont rose, Burgundy's answer to rose champagne and a bottle of premier cru Saint Georges 2006. By the time we got home we were tired content and over indulged, but a good time was had by both of us.

Return to Dijon

Well, today we went to Dijon which is the place we started from in Burgundy and approximately 25 years since our last visit. Doesn't sound all that exciting but getting out of the city on Saturday was totally traumatic. Why, I hear you ask? Driving a strange car on the wrong side of the road is problematic enough but add to that the road works going on in central Dijon and particularly around the station, where we picked up the car and you have a recipe for trauma. We must have driven around in circles at least three times with the GPS giving very patient instruction which kept leading us back to the station. Our GPS lady just wasn't up to date with the road works! In the end we turned her off and followed the road deviation signs and had no further trouble. So, today we went back, in fear and trepidation but it was a breeze!
The cause of all these road works is simple. Dijon is building a tram network throughout the inner parts of the city and every tourist who goes there seems to be upset by this activity. You only have to read the travel blogs for Dijon to see the hesitation that people express about going there.
Dijon is a medieval city and has some remarkably old buildings and some that are full of fun. There's one with a cat on the roof, not a real cat, but it looks real until, if you watch it for a while, you note that it doesn't move. Just as well as it's on the very edge of a ridge and looks as though it will either leap or fall but it does neither.
The cathedral building was begun in the late 1400's and consecrated in about 1529. The churches we looked at were very imposing on the outside but relatively small and oppressive inside.
We followed a tourist walk, called the route of the owl, in reverse, which led us passed most of the interesting public buildings including the Palais des ducs et des etats de Bourgogne and the hotel de vogue. We also walked passed les halles which is the market but which was finished for the day by the time we arrived. Fortunately we have another day there on Saturday, our last full day in France.

We concluded our trip home with a close up look at the only chateau classified as grand cru in cote de Beaune, south of our village, Corton Andre, and completion of our drive through back lanes to our cottage.

A day in Beaune

Beaune is a short drive from our house so we decided to spend a day there. Monday disclosed ample parking, possibly because many things in this tourist town are shut after the exertions of Sunday.
The town inside the ramparts (mostly built to keep the various marauders out during the 30 Years War 1618-1648) is compact and we feel can be sufficiently explored by tourists such as us in one day.

The hotel de ville is neat, and it was pleasing to see artichoke flowers in its garden.

The amazing jewel is the Hotel-Dieu, and although we had seen it on our last visit to the town in 1986, our memory suggests that it has been much restored and is now more extensively and far better displayed. Flash photos are not permitted and I had no tripod, so my internal photos are blurred or to dark to show without light correction not possible with my current iPad skills.
But the external court of honor, a straw model by an 18th century patient, the kitchen and pharmacy with bottles of woodlice powder, crayfish eyes, vomit nuts powder etc are all worth the camera eye. The polyptych of the last judgment has a giant magnifying glass installed in front of it's centre so that the exquisite detail may be appreciated.

After a picnic lunch outside the ramparts we took a walk along them but there was not much of interest to see for those who are not war historians of the 17th century.

We then took the recommended visit to the caves of the largest wine agent, Patriarche Pere et Fils. There are literally kilometres of caves and millions of bottles, punctuated by videos in the language of your choice. We set a cracking pace to keep ahead of a group of Germans seeking to watch the shows in German. At the end of the exploration we were presented with traditional tin tasting cups and offered a carefully arranged group of 13 of the region's wines to taste with them (10 pinots). Our verdict is that metal cups are not good for tasting (a fact also well known to Cleopatra, who used to insist on glass). However we gave very positive marks to the Mersault (white) and Gevrey Chambertin 2008 & Pommard 2007 (reds).

A visit to E.LeClerc to buy milk on the way home demonstrated again what we already knew, that a French hypermarket far outsizes any Coles or Woolworths.

Two villages

Sunday morning is misty turning into fine drizzle.
We drove 25 km south to Chagny. This large village is host on Sundays to an attractive market that spreads through most of the streets in the centre of the village, selling fresh and hot prepared food, and clothing. Where we enter there is a stall selling South American woollens while the vendor plays her pan flute, filling all the street with those dulcet tones.
We succumbed to the lure of a dozen enormous oysters (provenance unknown), a local soft goat cheese, and from a stall selling only the most delectable of fungi, a local Truffle.

As the rain was clearing this afternoon we explored our own home village of Villers la Faye on foot.

On our return home dinner was a degustatory feast- first course successfully shucked oysters seasoned with wine vinegar, second course baked vegetables, third course scrambled egg avec generous serve of truffle, accompanied by our local haute-cotes de Beaune, and dessert of escargot (the pastry kind) fresh from the village boulanger this morning.
The photo collection is from the Chagny market and our village.

Paris to Bourgogne

For our final days in Paris the weather cooled and our general pace slowed. Our last piece of tourism was a visit to the Musee Cognacq-Jay, a delightful and outstanding collection of 18th century paintings, furniture and ceramic minatures donated by the founders of a once leading emporium "Samaritaine" including several each of Canaletto, Fragonard, and Reynolds.

Our final Paris meal was at a traditional bistro La Sancerre, good enough to write home about- moderate cost, competent chef, pleasing outlook on the corner of rue Bretagne and rue des Archives, justifying the positive reviews in Trip Advisor.

We spent a lot of Friday wondering if our train would go on time or at all as the SNCF staff disrupted the system following the stabbing of a ticket inspector.

Saturday is moving day and our apprehension proved groundless as the train was "a l'heure". Avis has provided an Opel. Getting out of Dijon was however pure stress. Roadworks and street closures everywhere had our poor GPS lady bamboozled and she led us round and round the gare attempting get to the dug up road until we shut her down and followed a temporary sign saying "Dijon Sud". Elementary really.

The Dijon cottage is the best holiday house we have ever occupied, roomy rather than cozy (lounge room with separate dining area, separate TV room, kitchen with breakfast bar, 2 bedrooms, garage, etc. Country silence. Views of and from the lounge below. A welcome gift from the owner of a bottle of Haute-Cotes de Beaune. Luxe!