Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Alsace/Burgandy Trip Report 04/06

We flew over night from Philadelphia to Paris on Air France and the flight was great. We had reserved a car from Hertz throught the #1 club. Service was horrible and the car was worse. I went back to complain but was told I was given an upgrade to a dirty unmaintained vehicle, tired we took it and left. We took along a small handheld GPS which was very helpful throughout our trip.

Roads in France were great but expensive (tools kill you). We started on to our first stop of Obernai in Alsace. A bit rainy and cool but not enough to stop anything. Obernai is lovely and great for a 2 night stay. Hotel Cour d'Alsace was wonderful with 2 rest. and great service. Our 2nd meal was at La Cour des Tanneurs..Very very good!!! The town is very walkable but a bit touristy. The smell from the bakery down the street drove me nuts!! Learned about tipping from a nice man. Here is the final word on tipping; service and tax is added to every meal no matter what they say but no $ goes to the server. They do get a reasonable salary so to leave a 10% was fine.

From Obernai we went to Beaune and Hotel Le Cep. A bit worn and with a little update it could be 4 stars. We found service from most to be excellent! Beaune is great for walking and minutes from the vineyards. Our first meal was at Le Charlemagne (Rudy Maxa) but it had changed hands some time ago to a fusion French/Asian rest with Mobile ratings!!(Over the top stuff here). Our 2nd meal at Caveau des Arches was of local specialties and woonnnderful! Did some wine tasting in a cave we found on a back street for 7Euro which was fun and more then enough to try(service was great).

On our way to Vezelay we stopped in well written and photographed town of Semur en Auxois. The dirtiest, depressed and depressing place of our trip and left the town within 30 minutes.

Vezelay was very charming. Stayed at the best hotel choice there Hotel Poste et du Lion d'Or. Set at the bottom of the hill leading to the Abbey (90Euros) Great little room clean and a view to cry for!Rest there was good but I thought that the food need a little more care(chef tried hard). Very clean but service was a bit COLD. We were leaving early the next morning for our 3 hour door to door trip back to CDG airport so we checked out the night before, letting all know we were leaving around 7am the next. Before departing I asked for a cup of coffee and was denied??? We toured the country side that last full day and found some lovely towns and just 1 mile out of town we found the perfect place to come back to for dinner. Les Deux Ponts, if you want to have a country inn dinning experience then this is the place. Wonderful husband and wife team that put out well well cared for food with attention to detail.

All and all we tried to be travelers and not tourist. The trip was wonderful!!!!