BikerScott

Coco - The saga of the iPod will continue with a twist you won't be expecting...
We were shocked, stunned and really pleased when the wine showed up - the carafe was a MONSTER - maybe not a full 1.5L, but definately bigger than a single bottle...it was actually pretty funny when she plopped it down on the table...I looked at Jamie, Jamie looked at me, we both laughed.

SuzieC

Well Scott? You do have "style".
I am enjoying your report. My new DH and I got home on 10/17. Our visit to Paris was just sort of this ... no sites to go see, just sorta "hung out".
Glad to know others do that too!

AGM_Cape_Cod

I feel for your iPod problems. For our last trip to France, I had loaded up my iPod with great music. We brought the necessary technology to use it in the rental car. I get to my seat, put on the buds and nothing! Why does it always happen like that? I can't wait to hear about its continuing saga.

ps-love the trip report too.

cocofromdijon

ttt
I suspect BS writes his report at his office ;-)
We want the next episode!!!

BikerScott

I realize that I haven’t posted a little intro to explain our background/traveling style etc…

My wife (Jamikins on this forum) and I are both in our late 20’s/early 30’s from the west coast of Canada (Vancouver). Neither of us have any medical issues that make traveling difficult, other than my chronic tendonitis in my knees, which fortunately hasn’t been an issue on any of our trips so far. We both speak conversational French, although Jamikins is more fluent that I am (although I can order a bottle of wine like a champion) – both of us understand far more than we actually speak.

We’ve been to Europe several times before, with longer stays in London and Paris, and short visits to Scotland and Italy. Our first trip was one of the “whirlwind-have-to-see-everything-at-once” trips and we found it was just too much to take it. We now prefer to have a “home base” and take day trips from there – much less burn-out, plus we find we really get to know a city/area before we have to move on.

BikerScott

Day 4
Tuesday, September 19, 2006:
The Road to Burgundy.

(<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/radio-f...328/"> see photos from the trip here</a&gt

We both enjoyed another night of not sleeping very well. In retrospect, perhaps requesting a room not overlooking Rue des Ecoles may have been a good idea, although I suspect jet lag and heat had more to do with it than anything else.

This was going to be a travel day for us – we had tickets for the train from Paris to Dijon, where we had a car waiting for us. As we didn’t have any plans for the day other than the train we slept in a little bit and spent the morning packing up our bags. Our train was leaving from Gare Lyon, which wasn’t really that far from our hotel, so we decided to take the metro instead of calling a cab.

We walked from our hotel down to the Cluny-Sorbonne metro station through light drizzle. A few stops later, we were at the Gare d’Austerlitz station. The metro map is a bit confusing – we thought it looked like there was some sort of connection between Gare d’Austerlitz and Gare Lyon, which is across the river. Even now, looking at the metro map, there’s a little line between them. As it turns out, there is no link, at least not that we could find. We exited Gare d’Austerlitz by completely the wrong door, walked around the entire station before walking across the bridge and into Gare Lyon.

After waiting a relatively short time at the station, we got on the train and found our seats. Our car was relatively empty – the only people near us were a couple from the Midwest USA, and an elderly French crazy lady and her dog. The Americans kept up an entertaining chatter the entire trip into Burgundy, discussing such enthralling topics as the particular species of corn grown in France (different than in the US, mainly because it’s not as tall apparently), and the difference between being a crop farmer who has cattle and a cattle farmer who has crops. The crazy French lady talked very loudly and unintelligibly to her dog – hopefully the dog understood what she was saying because we certainly didn’t.

As the train rolled through the French countryside, the landscape slowly changed – from the urban sprawl of Paris’s suburbs and into the rolling hills dotted with tiny villages in Burgundy. I love traveling by train – you get to see so much more than you ever could by looking out a tiny window at 30,000 feet. As we headed south, we left the heavy grey clouds behind. We hoped that the real rain would hold off for a while longer.

After collecting our bags and getting off the train, we decided that we were really really hungry. There was a Quick just outside the Dijon train station and I’m ashamed to admit that we grabbed a bite to eat there. Sometimes you just need a greasy bulk-produced crap hamburger. After our guiltily satisfying lunch, we went to pick up our car at the Europcar next door.

We were given a bright blue Fiat Stilo, whom we immediately named “Floriane,” for the girl at the Quick who had taken our lunch order. Floriane turned out to be a bit bigger than I’d expected, although still small by North American standards – she was a 4-door hatchback with a 5-speed standard transmission.

I’ve never really been very good at driving standard – I’ve never owned one and have only had rare occasions to drive one. My most recent experience was with my dad’s old truck – a 1-ton Chevy pickup. The clutch on that thing was not touchy and so not a lot of skill was required to get the thing moving (you didn’t even need gas in 1st gear – just slowly release the clutch and it would start moving forward). Floriane, however, was a bit touchy. I managed to stall her while trying to drive out of the parking stall directly in front of the Europcar window. Excellent.

I managed to get her moving, and we headed out of Dijon towards Beaune. Fortunately there are excellent signs from the train station and we didn’t get lost, even a little bit. The drive between the two cities is really nice – the highway is flat, wide, and winds through endless vineyards and tiny little wine-making villages.

45 minutes later, we entered Beaune. It was at this point that we realized that we’d neglected to bring the directions to our hotel. We didn’t even have a map of the town. This was a major strategic oversight. We’d been given the advice that if we entered a roundabout in France and weren’t sure which exit to take, the best bet is to drive around again. We figured this applied to the ring-roads around towns. We drove around the damn thing 7 times, Jamie’s patience getting thinner and thinner every time we passed the Speedy store. We finally stopped in a parking lot and found a map, which was of absolutely no use to us.

After another revolution, we decided to pick an exit at random. It was not the right one, although we did find *a* hotel. We asked in the lobby if they had any idea at least where the street we were looking for was, and they gave us directions, which I totally messed up on leaving the parking lot. Back into the ring-road and another revolution. We picked another exit, which ironically turned out to be almost the right one. We found a sign that looked promising and followed it around and about for a while. By pure luck and coincidence, we ended up on the right road and finally found Hotel Grillon (21, route Seurre Beaune, 03 80 22 44 25).

We settled in to our room, which was oddly decorated with wallpaper featuring small hot-air balloons and American flags. Despite the oddness of the wallpaper, the room was really nice – a large and comfy bed, two windows looking out onto the front lawn, a dresser, desk, and huge (by French standards) bathroom with a full stand-up shower! The rest of the hotel was nice as well, and the owners really friendly.

After getting our bearings and relaxing a bit from the stressful drive in, we walked into town – only about 15 minutes. Beaune is a really quaint little town – lots of really old buildings and winding little streets – very medieval looking. Our first stop (after the tourist office for a ton of maps and brochures), this being us, was the Marche au Vins (literally, the Wine Market) (7 r Nicolas Rolin 03 80 25 08 20). For a minimal fee, they gave us a little tin tasting cup and sent us down into the cellars for a self-directed tasting. They had 15 local wines available for tasting (including a few premier crus, and one grande cru) and no one around to pester you or ensure that you were being appropriate with the pouring. We were, but have since heard stories of people spending far too much time down there…

After thoroughly enjoying ourselves, we felt that perhaps some food would be a good idea. We wandered around a bit looking for a likely spot, and settled on Le Conty (5 r Ziem 03 80 22 63 94). There are two dining rooms at this restaurant – one on the street level, and one in the cellars underneath. We went for the cellars, because lets face it, the closer to the wines, the better. Dinner was tasty, and I have to admit that their bœuf bourguignon may have been a little bit better than mine.

At this point, we decided to call it a night. The day had been long, and while a good portion of it had been spent on the train, the endless revolutions around the ring road had taken it toll. Our first impression of Beaune was very good – so far we loved it and couldn’t wait to explore more.

blh

I had to laugh at your search for Hotel Grillon - we went around that ring road a few times ourselves searching for the hotel. It isn't easy to find - even with a map! But it was worth it - a very nice and comfortable place to stay. Anxious to read your next installment - enjoying your report very much! (We also stayed at Hotel St Jacques in Paris!)

cocofromdijon

Great!
You're right about the ring road in Beaune, it is terrible!
I think Europcar in Dijon station should give Fodorites a discount as they are more and more of them to use their services...
It is a pity you didn't take "la route des grands crus" the departementale road parallel to the nationale. So pretty and much quieter than the busy RN74. Or maybe you took it on the way North...

hopingtotravel

Too funny! We also got lost trying to find the Hotel Grillon, and we actually had a map. We even got into the middle of town on streets which I'm not sure were meant for cars. After an hour of circling my husband pulled into a parking lot of another hotel and 'went on strike"

I went in and the girl at the desk called the Grillon for me and got us straightened out. The English-speaking woman said later she almost came out in her car and picked us up.

You were right; it was a pleasant stay. Unless all rooms were decorated the same, we also had the balloon room. Wasn't Montgolfier, a Frenchman who invented the hot air balloon? That was the only connection I could make with the wallpaper.

BikerScott

Day 5
Wednesday, September 20, 2006: Pedal to the Metal

The day dawned bright and sunny – our first fully cloud-free day since being in France. With such spectacular weather and a car, we felt we were absolutely required to have a driving tour of Burgundy. We’d picked up a brochure at the Beaune tourist office that had two driving tours listed – a northern tour and a southern tour. The northern one was quite a bit shorter and as we had no concept of distances and timing in the area, we chose that one for the day.

We loaded up Floriane with our jackets, camera, water, maps, and gum (can’t go on a driving tour without a pack of gum) and headed out, expecting not to be back until late afternoon. After a quick revolution on the ring-road around Beaune, we found the right exit and headed out on the N74. Before long we were driving through some of the amazing countryside around Beaune – we wound up and down picturesque little valleys, through dense green forests and through a few scattered little towns.

As we drove, we realized that the scale of the map was a bit bigger than we were used to in Canada – 2 inches on this thing was only 5 kilometers. Our itinerary on this northern route included towns like Aloxe-Corton, Pernand-Verglelesses, Echevronne, Boulland, and Savigny-Les-Beaune, as well as tiny villages too small to even make it on the map. When I say tiny, I mean tiny – we’re talking one lane through the village (and not one lane each way, one lane total – I was glad that it was a slow morning and there wasn’t anyone coming the other direction around some of those corners in some of those towns). It only took us about 30 minutes to get to the farthest point of the tour. We’d planned on stopping as we went, but none of the towns had anything that really looked store-like –at least nothing that we wanted to stop for.

After an hour or so of driving, we ended up at the end of the tour back in Beaune. At this point, it was maybe 11:00am – not late afternoon as we’d anticipated. Careful analysis showed that we’d driven a grand total of about 20kms, and that the southern route, while longer, would probably be no more than 100kms – easily drivable in a day.

Feeling somewhat reckless and adventurous, we found the D970 and headed out. The southern route turned out to be more scenic than the northern route, if that’s possible. The hills were higher (still not mountains, despite what the locals call them), the villages smaller and closer together. We found several outlooks on the top of some of the hills where we could get panoramic views of the various valleys around us.

After a few hours of driving, we realized that we were ravenous and had to go to the washroom. Most of the towns we were driving through were still so small as to not have anything open. It quickly became a major mission to find either a café or toilet, or both. At one point, we stopped in a village for a quick look around and the boulangerie van pulled up. An ancient woman tottered out of her yard, across the street and bought some bread. I realized that if a village in France is too small to have its own boulangerie, it certainly isn’t going to have a café. I briefly thought about asking the woman who was buying the bread if I could use her toilet, but decided against it.

We finally hit a slightly bigger town when we got to Meursault. Not huge, but it did have a few stores and there were even some people walking around (most of the previous villages looked like ghost towns, with no one about other than old ladies buying bread from vans). After driving through the main part of town, we spotted a brasserie. We found a parking spot for Floriane and headed across the street for a bite to eat. The place had a nice-looking patio which was very full, and two rooms. The first one I poked my head into was completely full of French teenagers – I’m not sure but I suspect that the local school sent their kids here for lunch. The certainly gave me an odd look, and a quickly backed out.

The second room was available, and we found a table by the bar. It quickly became apparent that yet again we were the only tourists in the place, and from the looks of it, there hadn’t been any in there for a while. We ordered from the specials of the day (some sort of sweet pork curry with baby roasted potatoes – very tasty indeed) and watched the locals go about their lunch. One fairly gnarly looking dreadlocked gentleman was chain-smoking and chain-drinking – looked as if he was going for maximum tobacco and alcohol intake in as short a period of time as possible – later he explained that he was out on the harvest and they aren’t allowed to drink or smoke in the vines.

After our extremely tasty lunch we walked up the road to Domaine du Chateau de Meursault (now that’s a hell of a name) for a tour and a wine tasting. The chateau itself is huge with a massive enclosed property. Jamie and I decided that we would both be very comfortable living there. The tour started somewhat disappointingly with a short wander through the upper halls to look at some apparently famous modernish art. Fortunately, this was followed by a descent into the caves under the chateau – most of which were built in the 12th century, although some were built in the seventh century (yes, you read that right – some time between the year 600 and 700). The caves were incredible – rooms upon rooms of casks of wine – other hallways with racks of wine stacked 3 bottles deep from floor to ceiling – one hallway held approximately 160,000 bottles.

We had our own private and very portly French sommelier to explain the 15 wines we got to taste, including three of their premier cru wines. We enjoyed all of them, especially the premier crus, although we only bought a bottle of the pinot noir to enjoy later that evening.

After the tour we hit the road again for the 2nd half of the southern route. We managed to get spectacularly lost looking for a particular village called “Hospital de Paris” – we drove back and forth through a nearby town 4 or 5 times looking for it. We became convinced that Hospital de Paris doesn’t actually exist – it’s a trick of the locals to get tourists lost and confused – we never found it. After the search, we decided to give up and head back to Beaune – we were defeated by the maze.

After stopping briefly at the hotel to freshen up and pick up the tripod, we drove little Floriane back into town for the evening. After a brief wander through the seedy side of town (seedy being a relative term – that side had the only beggar we saw in Beaune), we went to one of the “super-touristy” cafés on the main square for a drink.

Our appetites sufficiently whetted, we decided to find somewhere to eat dinner. We soon realized that, like in the touristy areas of Paris where you can get all the steak au poivre you’d ever want, it was hard to find restaurant in the centre of Beaune that had anything other than beouf bourguignon, coq au vin, and escargots on the menu. We headed out of the walled area of town and ended up having what might have been the best meal of the trip up to that point at “La Table du Vieux Vigneron” (6 r Faubourg Madeleine 03 80 24 07 78). I had a chevre salad, which was excellent, and Jamie had some sort of egg poached in wine on toast thing that was beyond words. I just can’t explain how good it was. I don’t even remember what we ate after that, it was that good. If you ever go to Beaune, seriously, go to this place and order the egg thingy.

After dinner we headed back into town to take some night shots of Beaune, then it was back to the hotel to pass out.

cocofromdijon

<the egg thingy> are actually Oeufs Meurette (or Oeufs en Meurette) very popular (DH loves them when they're good)
I found the recipe http://www.recipelink.com/mf/3/10280

I'm surprized you didn't go further North on your first tour from Beaune, there is so much more to see after Nuits St Georges. Much too short when we know the golden slope is 45km long.

In Bouilland you were just a few kms away from Chateauneuf en Auxois and its lovely medieval castle up on a hill. Very cute village and a big change in the landscape.

I checked on my map and found L'Hopital de Meursault near Meursault but no H. de Paris, I'll ask my hubby.

I'm glad that many parts of the popular golden slope remains wild and not so touristy. Maybe the group you saw at the restaurant was a group of harvesters (vendangeurs)celebrating the end on the grape picking...
As a student, I used to drive those bread and pastry van and loved it.
I was bringing bread and pastry from Dijon and sold them with a van. One of the most beautiful souvenirs of my life (selling bread in the country and meet nice people in villages). It is a great way to keep you fit (jump in and out at every stop) sun tanned and beautiful, I wish I could have kept on doing this longer... In the snow it was not that easy sometimes though, but what a beautiful countryside!
Yesterday morning I could hear the butcher's van! Those jobs tend to be very rare nowadays since people go the hypermarkets for their shopping... It is so handy for elder people and for those who don't own a car.
In my village close to Dijon there are one grocery/bakery and 2 restaurants but some vans keep coming to sell cheese or meat.
But I don't agree with you when you say that if a village doesn't have a bakery it won't have a café. Almost every village I used to stop at had a café (even a small one!) except when it was farms only.

Now what about Dijon?

4totravel

"Floriane turned out to be a bit bigger than I’d expected, "

Ha Ha - I thought you were still speaking of the Quick waitress!!

BikerScott

Coco - I looked on Mappy, and indeed it's there - pretty far south in the area of Creot, Change, and Dezize Les Maranges - we saw lots of signs for it (its actually "Paris l'Hospital&quot, unfortuantely the signs led us in circles around and through town a few times before we gave up.

The group in the restuarant were definately not pickers - it was a group of probably 30 kids in the age range of maybe 13 - 16ish...seeing as it was about lunchtime on a Wednesday, I assumed a school group...

You're probably right about the cafe thing, although I can confirm that the village that we saw the van in didn't have a cafe, at least not one that was marked as such...it was *tiny* - maybe 25 people would've lived there, if that...a couple of houses and that was it...we had a lot of trouble finding anything open in that area - everything we did find was closed, other than in Meursault.

Finally - we did want to explore up further north, but just ran out of time. We've already decided that we're going to make a return trip to Burgundy and spend a lot more time exploring the rest.

Bettina222

Great report.......I'm enjoying reading it!
Mind if I ask how much Hotel St. Jacques cost?

BikerScott

I think Hotel St. Jacques was about €125/night. Glad you're enjoying the report!

jamikins

Day 6 is Dijon Coco...and my favourite town so far! I just loved it! I think I could live there!

cocofromdijon

Then I'm even more looking forward to reading it!
Jamikins wasn't it you who tried to contact me through myhomeindijon.com? I'm afraid you never succeeded.
I've changed my contact page a little bit and now no one can miss it! Maybe for another time... You were so close to it on place de la Libération!

jamikins

Yes it was me! I was just so busy before I left (wrote my Chartered Accountants board exam the 3 days prior to leaving) so lots of things I just didnt have time to followup on. I adored Dijon! It is such a lovely town!

BikerScott

Day 6
Thursday, September 21, 2006: Dijon and Other Things in Bacon

(Check out the accompanying photos from this trip at http://tinyurl.com/w5rlb)

Another sunny day – perfect for our day trip to Dijon. After a quick breakfast at the hotel we loaded up Floriane and headed north again.

We made it to the outskirts of Dijon fairly quickly, and I managed to follow the signs more or less towards the train station – we figured we’d been there before, how hard could it be? We missed the station by a little bit (I didn’t see a sign and thus didn’t take a turn) but fortunately ended up at the Place Darcy parking, which was closer to the city than the train station, and wasn’t even full. After parking Floriane on a parking level that I’m pretty sure was about 5 floors below street level, we headed out to explore the city.

Our first stop, being the diligent tourists that we are, was the Dijon tourist office, conveniently located just across Place Darcy from where we were. We picked up a whole mess of brochures (we love brochures – Jamie makes scrap books out of them) and signed up for the “Owl Tour” – a self-guided two hour walking tour of all the major sights in Dijon.

The tour is excellent with an informative guide book, and has a well-marked path throughout the city (look for the little brass owls on the streets/sidewalks. It gave us a good overview of the city as well as told us some of the history of the building and monuments we were looking at – without it we would have been lost (with us, probably literally).

At some point during the two hours, we fell in love with Dijon. It’s an incredible little town – full of ancient buildings, quaint little pedestrian streets, fountains statues, and people. Unlike some of the other towns we’d been in, it immediately felt comfortable and welcoming. One of the coolest streets (rue Verrerie), at one point in its history, was named after our family (at least according to the plaque on the wall)! Before long we were looking at the listings in the windows of all the immobiliers in town, trying to figure out how long it would take for our companies to notice we never came back from France.

After the tour we spent a while just wandering around. It’s amazing how many churches there are in Dijon – there seems to be more than in other cities we’ve been too. Our feet started to get tired and we became unbearably thirsty – we immediately found a little café for a refreshing beverage. I had a tasty beer and Jamie ordered a local wine. Unfortunately, it was off – I suppose that particular bottle had been out for too long, or no one had tried a glass of it yet, or something. I took the glass to the counter and explained in my best French that the wine was bad (I’m pretty sure I got it right…at least the gist of it). The waiter gave me a look that screamed “silly tourist, you know nothing of wines.” Then he tasted it – I’m pretty sure he almost threw up on the spot (it more or less tasted of balsamic vinegar). I’ve never seen someone apologize so profusely for such a minor thing – he immediately went into the bad to get a fresh bottle.

Feeling somewhat refreshed, we continued our wandering (peering into the windows of immobiliers along the way). Jamie had developed an unhealthy obsession with seeing a mustard museum, and as we were in Dijon, what better place? The tourist map showed a museum just outside of town, and we set off in search of it. We didn’t find it (I’m not sure it’s even there any more) but did find a pleasant little garden to sit in for an hour (Jardin de l'Arquebuse). The garden was filled with locals enjoying the afternoon – sitting and talking on the benches or walking through the rows of plants. At one point we got to enjoy the drama as a large city van drove along the pathways in the garden and pulled up in front of the fountain in the middle. Two rather portly gentlemen in matching green uniforms got out. One wandered over to chat to the two guys who were weeding the gardens and spent the entire visit talking to them, while the other guy actually did the work (mainly consisting of dumping various chemicals into the pond).

Despite the sun, it was a bit chilly out – there was a good wind blowing. We walked back into town for a look at the excavated crypt underneath the Church of Saint Bénigne. I always find crypts creepy; however this one was actually pretty interesting. It was mostly destroyed during the French revolution when the lower levels were filled in with the rubble of the apse above. It was later re-discovered and excavated, although some of it is under the existing church and has therefore remained filled in.

To be honest, I can only spend so much time in churches and crypts before getting a little bored. They’re very nice, but most have a certain sameness that gets a bit repetitive after a while. After our crypt tour we walked to the main square in Dijon, Place de la Libération. The square has a great fountain running through the centre – a series of water jets that shoot water a few feet straight up – and several cafés around the outside. We picked one and sat down to enjoy another tasty beverage and some music (for some reason, there were any number of portable organ thingies all over the city playing the oddest music – everything from polkas to Cher – sort of cool at first, incredibly annoying after a while).

At this point the wind had picked up to near-gale status. At the table next to us, it picked up a menu and blew it across to our table. Without really thinking about it, I put the menu back on the table and stuck a big glass ashtray on top of it to hold it down. About 12 seconds later, the wind picked up the menu again and flung it and the ashtray onto the ground. Of course the ashtray, being glass, shattered. Fortunately no one was hurt by the flying glass, at least not right away. After sitting for a few seconds I realized that some of the glass may have landed on my leg – I became concerned that it might have even gotten into my sock and would cut me when I tried to walk. I ran my thumb between my sock and my shoe and sure enough, found a little shard of glass, which lodged in the end of my thumb. Typical. I never did get that damn bit of glass out.

With the bleeding mostly stopped, we felt it was a good time to end our visit to Dijon. We found the car and went to pay the parking, assuming that it was going to be a fair bit as we’d been there for 6 hours. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it only cost €3.00 for that length of time. The drive out of Dijon was entertaining – by this point the roads were somewhat busy and I still wasn’t the master of the standard transmission. We got out, albeit by a slightly different route than we’d intended, and drove back to our hotel.

After a full day of sightseeing and walking we didn’t feel like going back into Beaune for dinner. Fortunately there was a restaurant across the parking lot from the hotel that had been recommended called Le Verger (21 rte Seurre 03 80 24 28 05). I should’ve known when we walked in that it wasn’t exactly our style – all gold and dusty rose décor, with a bit of an age gap between us and everyone else in there of at least 30 years.

To say that it was a bit stuffy and stuck up would be an understatement. Jamie and I feel that we have a certain amount of class and style, but evidently we just didn’t meet the standard in that restaurant. The tone was extremely subdued (no speaking above a whisper), the expressions of the patron studied and reverential. Our response to this, of course, was to laugh. We just couldn’t contain ourselves – everyone was being so serious. From the glares and disgusted looks we received from the other patrons, this was not particularly appreciated.

The food itself was pretty good, although a bit over the top. I’m not really sure what I had – it was bunch of stuff wrapped in bacon (can’t go wrong with stuff wrapped in bacon). We consulted a gastronomic translation guide and determined that the white meat bit inside the bacon was probably rabbit. We didn’t want to translate the “gibelotte” bit in case it meant what I thought it meant, nor did we investigate too deeply what the clear gelatinous bit was. After ¾ of the meal, I was forced to hide the remaining portion of the “gibelotte” bit under some white beans as I couldn’t eat it, but didn’t want it just sitting there on my plate, announcing my culinary shame.

After dinner we walked back across the gravel parking lot and up to our room to enjoy the last of the bottle of pinot noir we’d purchased back in Meursault. I can’t think of a better way to end a day than with a glass of really nice wine. We didn’t have any real plans for the next day and looked forward to spending it relaxing in Beaune.

SRS

What a fantastic report! Wow - you are a wonderful writer. I am glad you went for three weeks because that means I have lots left to read!

Thanks,
Sally