19. Villers-la-Faye to Paris, Roessy-en-France, Pizza and Plane - LAST POST

Friday evening we finished packing and tidying up the house in Villers-la-Faye, in anticipation of a quick getaway to Paris Saturday morning. How do you pack a full-size bicycle for airplane travel, you say? EASY if your bike is fitted with aerospace tubing couplers, allowing you to break the bike frame in two, then stack all the frame parts, wheels, handlebars and seat in a square airline-legal suitcase! I used the workbench in our basement to get the job done, then stuffed my bike clothes and shoes in all the empty spaces before locking the bike case down for flight. We packed all the other suitcases in our rental car, ready to go. 

Shuttered up tight, adieu Maison de Chaumes

Break the bike frame apart, stuff all the pieces in the case, and fly it home! 

Next morning we had our last fresh croissants and French hot chocolate for breakfast, Lynn shuttered all the doors and windows on the house, we locked up and stored the key for the landlords, then hit the road. First stop: our FAVORITE overlook just outside VLF, with a heartachingly beautiful view over a valley full of vineyards and plowed fields. This is the place we saw the hot air balloons trying to land last week. It is also, oddly enough, the location for VLF’s recycle-trash cans! We stopped to insert our recyclables, and bid adieu to the awesome scenery in this valley. 

What a place for a recycle dump: our beautiful valley view is on the other side of these trees!

Paris was about 3 1/2 hours away. Our appointment with the owner of our AirB&B room was for later that evening, so we took our time on the drive. We headed for the A-roads to Paris: you pay a toll, but the drive is akin to our Interstate super highways, and well worth the cost. While driving, there is plenty of rural scenery. Occasionally there is an “Arie”, which is a rest stop for motorists and truckers. They’re like a box of chocolates, to quote Forest Gump, because you never know what you’re going to get! Some Arie’s have minimal facilities, including only a parking area and a picnic table and unisex “squatty potty”. Other Aires have a filling station, plus a store selling drinks, snack food, sandwiches, maps and souvenirs, with conventional restroom facilities, almost always very clean. Top-flight Aires  have all that, PLUS a small restaurant  with chefs preparing actual good food in view, with nice tables for dining, and sometimes a motel nearby. You watch the road signs to try to figure what kind of Aire you’re going to get, but there’s never a guarantee! 

McD's electronic ordering kiosk at an Aire on the way to Paris

One of our Aire stops included a McDonalds! It was in a separate building from the filling station store, so we walked over out of curiosity. Decor was very modern-McDonald’s-ish, and this one had several kiosk ordering sites. The customer approaches the kiosk screen, chooses a language for the transaction by pressing the screen buttons, reviews the menu in that language, then presses screen buttons to order the food and drink desired. The order is then prepared by humans behind the counter, and the order number is called. At that point, you pay for your food, pick it up, and and eat!  This is a first for me, although I hear these kiosks are being installed at some McD’s in the USA already. Let’s see how that goes.

The busy traffic in Paris on the ring road going around the city was a bit unnerving after our relaxed and happy driving all over Burgundy. Motorcyclists were particularly scary…while you are driving in crowded stop-and-go 5 lane-wide traffic on the highway, Paris motorcyclists race at high speed right up the space between cars, as though that space was a valid traffic lane. Think of someone riding their motorcycle atop the broken white lines separating lanes of the highway,and the cars using those lanes…that is exactly what these riders routinely do. Freaked me out for awhile! 

Beautiful interior courtyard and home, after getting past the gate and outer wall! 

We eventually made it to our target: Roessy-en-France, a small town adjoining Paris, right next to Charles DeGaulle airport. Using excellent GPS navigation, and Lynn’s sharp eye for turns while I watched for marauding suicidal motorcyclists, we found the street where our room for the night was located. Lynn found our hostess, Maude, and they directed me where to park for the night. Maude took us into her home, which was another of those French surprises, hidden behind a boring beige wall and a locking gate. Inside the gate we found a glorious courtyard, beautifully landscaped and open to the sun. We walked up a tight circular stairway to get to our room, dubbed the “New York” room. What a beautiful surprise, everything was perfect, and Maude was a delight. She spoke almost no English, so Lynn had a last opportunity to have some French conversation. Maude’s brother stopped by for a visit, so I had someone to talk to in English! We had a love of Cajun music in common: he’d just returned from visiting his Louisiana girlfriend, so was full of enthusiasm.

Maude recommended a fine pizza shop a few blocks away for a quick supper so we could go to bed early. Walking there, we passed the town’s “Marie”, just before finding the restaurant. It was perfect: small, intimate, pizza oven sticking out into the tiny dining area, with cafe tables and customers seated outside enjoying the early evening. They served Peroni beer, in a proper engraved Peroni glass, so I was super-happy. Lynn had a rose wine,  we toasted the end of our trip, and dug into our pizza. Parfait!  Seated behind us the entire time were two guys who were having an early pizza and some wine too. Eventually, they uncased two guitars, tuned up, sat back down in the tiny restaurant, and started playing the most amazing versions of Django Reinhardt classic guitar jazz I’ve ever seen/heard! We stayed for several songs, and would’ve stayed late into the night but for needing to fly EARLY tomorrow morning. We left a tip for the music, and got their card: “DALLAS” is the band’s name, and they were quite the unexpected Paris treat.

"Dallas" duo, incredible surprise musicians at our pizza place

We walked back to the New York room, had a great sleep, woke up at 3:00 a.m., and drove to the rental car return at CDG airport..what a riot! NO traffic that early, we will do this again! We dumped the car with no damage, which was like having a huge load lifted from our shoulders, and searched out our Alitalia gate after a little drama. Once on the plane, we had a not-nice flight home, but got here safely after 10 1/2 hours in the air. All trips eventually end, including THIS one! 

New York room! 

Homecoming was fun: the dogs missed Lynn greatly and were happy she came back to them. We’ve been busy getting our Florida lives back in order. Time to start planning our next adventure!  Thank you for reading about our trip.

Here is a link to ALL the photos of this trip if you'd like to see more: 

TRIP PHOTOS ALBUM

18. Winding-down, Daily Life in Villers-la-Faye, Last Bike Ride

The time has come to go home, and our thoughts have been aimed there today. Yesterday was a “recovery” day, where we got a lot of reading, goofing off, and walking around our little village accomplished, after our frantic "2CV Day". Now we are packing, cleaning, and preparing for our return trip which begins tomorrow morning. PLUS my last bike ride of this trip! 

Villers-la-Faye is really a small village, and you’d think almost no one lives here when you drive through. There are no visible open businesses, or schools, or sidewalks, or pedestrians, or signs of life…just a T-intersection of two roads at the community center, and a collection of old-looking buff-colored buildings VERY close to the road which you can almost hit with your car as you speed through the village! This impression is wrong, however. We’ve walked many places in VLF, and found the old chateau which now houses several families, some luxury-looking homes behind gated walls, and many other single-family homes on the tiny side streets  which you barely even notice when you pass them in a car. This is typical of small towns in France: LOTS going on behind walls and gates, so things often look boring and uninteresting from the street. Look closer! 

Heading up hill to Parc Chollet in Villers-la-Faye - it is COLD tonight folks! 

YESTERDAY, way above the village, we found a delightful wooded park, and a beautiful cemetery up a steep tiny road behind the “Marie” (town hall) in the middle of the village. We always like to walk through French cemeteries, because the grave stones and grounds are almost always beautifully kept, and poignant. Many of the grave sites have recent photos of the deceased, or remembrance cards or tokens from the family. An old chapel presides over this cemetery. The chapel was originally built here in the 13th century, but was destroyed, rebuilt, or remodeled several times over the the centuries. The cemetery is set in a big park with memorials to the village residents killed in WWI, and WWII, plus another memorial to the end of the war in Algiers in the 1960’s. This spot is a hidden gem in VLF, so glad we found it. Walking back home we explored a new hidden street behind the community center and found some beautiful walled-off homes we didn't know were there. A selfie-photo at the beautiful wine-press wagon at the beginning of our street, and we were home.

World Wars and Algeria War Memorials

Cemetery and chapel from afar

Beautifully landscaped grave site

Almost home: the wine-press at the end of our street

On our walk, we met 4 or 5 local school kids on their bicycles. One young guy rode up to us while we were looking at the village map, and when we said “Bonjour”, he became our buddy for the rest of the evening! We talked and talked, loving his earnest friendliness. He was so impressed we were from “Etats-Unis”, and wanted to know if we were from New York. We tried to explain we were from Florida, but that place held no meaning for him. As we continued on our walk, we heard him riding back to his other friends,  telling them we were Americans and talked to him. Don't you know, the whole flock of kids then rode their bikes to the plaza in front of the Marie where we were exploring the scene, and blabbed away with us for another 15 minutes or so. They showed us how to activate the big water pump in the middle of the plaza, to get a drink. I asked if it was OK to take a photo of the group, but one of the children said “no” very nicely…we believe French parents train their kids to be careful of strangers, which is admirable. So, no photo of our new young friends, but a memorable encounter nonetheless. Who knew we would be minor celebrities to a group of 10-year-olds! 

Heading out for last bike ride of the Bourgogne trip

 Speaking of bikes, I got one last bike ride in this morning, which was cut short by serious heavy rain. It was misty-rainy this morning when I took off, but about 1/2 hour into my ride the rain began coming down vigorously...and COLD! I figured "who cares", but once it soaked through my riding jacket, the cold temperatures (42 F) and wet clothes froze this Florida boy to the bone. The ride was scenic as always, even in the gray rain and clouds. After 70 minutes of that, I was DONE! A hot shower and dry clothes made all the difference. Nothing left to do but disassemble the bike and pack it up for flight.

Pretty roof tile design somewhere on the road - this pattern, or something similar,  recurs all over Bourgogne

Our daily routine here in VLF has been pleasant and easy to handle. We get up in the morning, and drive down to the boulangerie (bakery) to buy fresh croissants, a pain chocolat,  and a baguette for breakfast and for lunch sandwiches. Our favorite boulangerie in Comblancien closed for vacation or something, so we’ve been using our second choice which is located down the hill in Ladoix-Serrigny, about a 10 kilometer round-trip. After breakfast, we usually head out for whatever thing we figured out to do that day: bike ride, explore towns or vineyards or canals, or whatever looks interesting in the vicinity. Lunch is either here, or a picnic, or at a restaurant. However, you CAN’T decide to eat a late lunch out…restaurants and grills and bars all close routinely at 2:00, and don't reopen until 7 or 7:30 p.m. for dinner. When WE make lunch, we almost always make a ham and cheese sandwich (jambon et fromage) because that’s what ingredients we have handy! We buy our ham by the slice at a market or at a commercial grocery. Lynn usually gets 6 at a time. Cheese is always emmental, because we like it on ham. We get it at the market by the chunk and cut it into slices. The bread we use is our baguette, cut in half. We stick some mustard, tomato and lettuce from the market on there too. GREAT! 

Usual breakfast scene

Our house here is so beautiful and homey. It is modern and everything WORKS right, with plenty of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows/french doors. It has been cold here, but the steam heater and the sealing of the windows and doors has kept it comfy with no drafts or unpleasantness. This is the perfect house for us! 

Dinners we sometimes eat OUT, because this is vacation and we are not here to cook and clean up. We’ve had many spectacular meals at various restaurants our hosts recommended, but the last few nights we’ve eaten much more simply at the restaurant I blogged about the last installment, or at the brassiere run by our new buddy Pierre in Nuits-St.-George. We will probably eat our last meal of this trip at Pierre’s tonight! When we don’t go out, we eat lightly here: pizza from the pizza truck, sandwich, fruit, cheese, etc. The kitchen is full equipped for anything we’d like to do. We’ve tried several kinds of wine, and Lynn makes kirs from Cassis and Bourgogne aligote. Food and drink have not been a problem! 

One small disappointment of the trip has been our inability to walk easily to the boulangerie, bucherie, restaurants and shops, and the lack of a local market, like we have enjoyed in many of our other trips. I planned to ride my bike to the boulangerie once I learned the local one here had closed, but that proved to be impossible. So we use a car lots more than is ideal. HOWEVER, we LOVE being in a quiet residential neighborhood in a small town in the country, so that all bike rides start and end on country roads, we have no big-town noise or traffic to contend with, and we are able to reach any point of interest very quickly and safely in our car, and we are in a beautifully scenic place right in the midst of the most famous wine country in the world. So, you make trade-offs in locations, and we have certainly enjoyed this one! 

This is probably our last blog entry on this trip, as tomorrow is a transit day: drive to Paris, check into our B&B room, get up REALLY early Sunday morning to return the rental car and check in for our flight to Rome, then connect to a direct flight between Rome and Miami, then drive from Miami to Jupiter. This has been a blast. We’ll let you know how it comes out getting home! 

Here are the trip pics if youid like to see more:
TRIP PHOTOS

17. Citroen 2CV Roadtrip! Chateau de Chateaneuf, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, Abbaye de Fontenany and more

After all our trips to France, and all our thinking or saying,  “What a cool car, it looks so French. I bet it’s really awesome to drive, we should rent one someday…”, well TODAY we finally did it. We rented a Citroen 2CV, the quintessential French car, and drove the snot out of it all day! The 2CV is seen all over France as a classy runabout, a beat-up and abused farm tool, a daily-driver for huge numbers of families, and just an omnipresent mechanical device. They made millions of them in the years between 1948 and 1990, so they are everywhere! We’ve been distantly in love with them (well, Lynn more than me!) for 20+ years, today we put our love to the test.

Lynn and the 2CV

Our rental was a 1987 2CV “Club” model. SO, it’s almost 30 years old now,  even though it was one of the last ones manufactured. Yes, it is literally an antique. The design of this car changed very little during its 42 years of manufacture…so driving this thing was like stepping into a time machine. The design itself was revolutionary in the 1940’s and 1950’s: It was designed to allow French farmers to drive their crops and small livestock over rough fields and crude roads to the markets, without damage to the cargo or driver. The suspension is pillow soft and supple, so it rides like a huge marshmallow over almost anything. The engine is a horizontally-opposed 2 CYLINDER  air-cooled monster, making almost no horsepower…think BMW motorcycle engine that never got any protein or exercise while growing up. 4-speed transmission , but not a sports car, just charasmatic as heck! The shifter in this car sticks out of the dashboard, and is a black ball attached to a thick horizontal steel rod. You PULL the ball back away from  the dashboard for 1st gear, PUSH it forward and twist for 2nd gear, PULL it straight back out for 3rd gear, and after the engine finally sounds like it can use it, you PUSH the ball back toward the dashboard and twist it to achieve 4th gear. It's so fun to try to re-train your reflexes to deal with this shifting regime. All the work results in NO SPEED…we never drove more than 70 kilometers per hour (45-50 mph, I think), and that was about all our 2CV could handle!

Pick up the 2CV from rental agency in Beaune

What else can I tell you about the car? Well, its looks are unique, and people either love it or hate it, I think. The roof arches for plenty of interior room; the canvas top can be rolled back completely open, so you can haul tall furniture or goats or sheep inside; arched windows give you all the periphery vision you could ever wish for; straight uncurved doors and windows make for easy replacement; sheetmetal parts like doors, fenders, hood, and boot all bolt on for easy repair or replacement (same with interior trim, all held on with exposed Phillips head screws). Lots more boring innovation to talk about, but just read the Wikipedia listing for “Citroen 2CV” if you'd like to know more! This thing is light as a feather, simple as an anvil, easy to understand and work on, and just funky as heck! Yup, French folks from every walk of life bought millions of these things.

Enough talk about the car, what’d we DO with it today, you say? Well, here goes. Our road trip was purposely limited only to small roads, with no high speed limit/multi-lane roads. Our plan was to see as many small towns and areas as we could, while heading for pretty chateaus, castles, or abbeys.

1st stop - Pont d'Ouche canal, with canal boat moored1 

First official stop was Pont d’Ouche, a tiny town on the Canal de Bourgogne. We took some pics of the car and the canal boats, then moved on to find  an unexpected pretty chateau while driving through Commarin. 

Commarin chateau - shows how hard it is to wave from an open 2CV window

Next stop after more motivating: Chateauneuf-en-Auxois. WOW…it’s a feudal-era castle atop a steep stone cliff, with a village which sprang up around it. 

Chateaneuf from afar

What a drive UP in the 2CV;  1st gear was all we could manage. Once inside the village, we could barely negotiate the twists and turns of the “streets”,  laid out apparently at random over the centuries, without regard for modern transport machinery. It was beautiful…but we moved on…remember, this was a ROAD trip in our favorite car!  On the way down the mountain, we detoured through a two-track dirt road to prove just how versatile and cushy the 2CV was supposed to be!

The Chateau at Chateauneuf

Village scene at Chateauneuf

Accidental off-road trial for 2CV...this is the kind of terrain it was designed for

Flavigny-sur-Ozerain was the next stop after a bunch of country driving, and some unwanted highway kilometers. This is the hard-to-get-to little village that was used as the setting for  wonderful film from 10-15 years ago: “Chocolat”, which we watched again just last week. The town was beautiful, much bigger than you would suppose from the movie, but with convoluted and twisted streets and dead-ends which made it impossible to find the spots we saw in the movie. Get out and walk the city for a closer look? HAH, are you kidding??? We rented this 2CV to                                                                                                             DRIVE…so we took off. 

L'Abbaye de Fontenay, Lynn and the 2CV

Lunch on a rock by the river channel L'Abbaye de Fontenay

Perhaps our favorite stop was the L’Abbaye de Fontenay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was founded in the 12th century by Cistercian monks, and is still an active monastery today. The movie “Cyrano de Bergerac” starring Gerard Depardieu was also filmed there. It was lovely to see, set along a tranquil channel of the local river, and obviously well-kept by the monks or their helpers. We ate the picnic lunch Lynn made this morning: the traditional jambon et fromage baguette, with tomato and lettuce, eaten while seated on  big rock by the water! Later, Lynn sampled driving the 2CV in the mostly-deserted parking lot of the monastery, and declared it “Good”. Then we switched drivers and beat it out of there for some more miles/kilometers.

Lynn in the vineyards on the hillside overlooking beautiful village of Arcenant

We drove all over French farm country backroads for the next few hours. Arcenant was our next remarkable stop. We were back in the Cote d’Or wine country again, after an entire day of driving through non-grapes scenery. Most of our driving had been through country agriculture or forest land, with few towns or amenities. When we hit Arcenant, we were back among the valleys of vines!

Back into the vines above Arcenant

Arcenant is relatively close to our home in Villers-la-Faye, but a little off from all the usual routes we travel, so we hadn’t yet seen it.  What a beautiful view we found of this pretty town from the vineyards high above it. We took a bunch of 2CV pictures to remember the day, then hit the road again to drive through the town and on to Villers-le-Faye.

We stopped by our “home” and took some pictures of the car and house together (well, wouldn’t you?), then drove back to Beaune to return the rental after 9 hours of fun. 

Of course, we’d acquired quite an appetite after this day of excitement and wrestling with the 2CV, so went prowling for a place to eat a quick supper. Yes, this is another blurb about FOOD! An unexpected surprise opportunity surfaced at the “Carrefours” grocery in Beaune. It’s set in a “community business center”, which turns out to be a small, nice shopping mall. The restaurant there was a French equivalent of Panera’s in the USA: good food at fast-food prices. The difference: all THIS fast food was prepared live, in sight, fresh. The fruit salad was being hand cut up while we watched, vegetables were prepared fresh and available buffet style (think "salad bar"), the fish and meat dishes were cooked in sight by a chef while we waited, and you could select a wine or beer to have with your meal right at the checkout counter. This was PERFECT, ‘cause we were beat. A wonderful meal, without investing a whole evening in the event the way we so often do at “regular” French restaurants. We’ll go back to this place again this trip! All in all, this was one fantastic day for US…I don't know if everyone would enjoy a day of traveling like we did, but this was epic! 

Thanks for following what we’re up to. The blog and photos are a little slow in coming sometimes, as we get kind of caught up in DOING stuff or sleeping, instead of WRITING stuff or selecting photos. Please be patient, and we’ll have the pics attached and uploaded to our trip album very soon! 

More trip photos than you could ever want are at this link!
TRIP PHOTOS

SPECIAL BONUS VIDEO!!! Here's how you drive a Citroen 2CV; the shifter is the most fun part:
2CV SHIFT Video

16. Aloxe-Cotone wine Tasting Tour, Bike from Beaune, Nuits-St.-George supper

The rain was gone, the sun was out, weather predictions were positive, so we got out and did stuff today! First order of business (after breakfast from the boulangerie, of course) was finding a bike shop in Beaune, so I could buy some spare bike inner tubes. I exploded my extra tube last night, trying to repair my leaking rear tire, and distance cycling is best done with spare tubes on board. We found a likely place on the outskirts of Beaune, and dove in. What a bike shop! Big open warehouse-sized room filled with equipment for every variation of cycling you could hope to do. AND the guy carried spare parts for all forms, including the exact type and size of inner tubes I needed. He was not a talkative dude, so not much practice speaking French for Lynn or me, but no complaints: he had the correct goods! 

See ya later! Bike trip drop-off at Beaune

I changed into my cycling gear in the parking lot, and Lynn took me to the edge of town for a drop off. I took off toward the southeast of Beaune, with the aim of eventually cycling back up to Villers-La-Faye a few hours later. Lynn drove back to Beaune to explore the old town a little more, and eventually get some lunch. She is fearless, driving our diesel, 6-speed stick shift rental car all over France whenever she wants to. 

Old waterwheel station at a building out in the country

My ride was fantastic, but different from riding the vineyards. This part of Burgundy is NOT wine country! Most of the area is devoted to general agriculture, like raising charlois cattle, corn, and low-growing produce crops of every description. This time of year the farmers seem to be plowing fields to get ready for next spring, so everything smells good and looks tidy. I made my way through lots of tiny villages, most of which were unremarkable working villages on the edge of the tillable land. The exception was “Levernois”, the first town I came to after Lynn dropped me. This was a really upscale community, clean and with modern relatively new homes…I couldn't figure out what was up until I made it through the little town and found a huge, well-groomed golf course and parking lot filled with Mercedes, Audi and assorted other luxury vehicles. Ah HA! So, the Bourgonians are GOLF lovers, huh? Maybe this little town was the French version of our sterile but upscale golf course communities. Riding beckoned, I kept moving! 

Villy-le-Metier water wheel at old millhouse

The BEST part of the ride happened at “Villy-le-Metier". I saw a pretty waterwheel building from the road, and walked back to explore. it was lovely, an ancient stone mill house with a real old waterwheel revolving slowly in the river. After I took some pics, I saw the town’s chateau behind me, with a U-shaped courtyard filled with farm equipment. When i walked in to look, a young guy came out to greet me! I used the “bonjour” rule to begin, introduced myself to him, and we had a long talk about bikes, his work as a farmer, the Cote d’Or wine, the old chateau, and what kind of crops grow in my home of Florida. The best part is, he knew only a little English, and I know only a little French, but we connected and got our feelings and thoughts across one way one another. I LIVE for moments like this while cycling in France, or ANY foreign country. What a super afternoon it turned out to be, just from his kindness and interest in a stranger on a bike. Get out of your car and touch other people (well, not literally!) is what I recommend! 

        My new friend on a chateau farm at Villy-le-Metier

Horizon to horizon agriculture, east of Beaune, just off the Cote d'Or

The ride was fun and long. My goal was to stay away from towns I’d already ridden through until close to home. By doing that, I found a previously-hidden (from me) section of the Vois de Vigne bike path near our home! It was STEEP, a great workout, and sort of a shortcut back to VLF.  

Marble quarry just up the hill from Villers-la-Faye, in Combliacen

On the way, I stopped by our local MARBLE QUARRY to see how they do that stuff - yes, there is industry here that is NOT agricultural or wine-related! Lynn and I linked back up at home after 3 hours of riding, got cleaned up, and headed out for our next adventure of the day: WINE TASTING and TOURING!

Lynn researched the best winery for us to tour: the Domaine of Comte Senard…so we headed out. This is a beautiful ancient winery and vineyard in the nearby village of Aloxe-Cotone, which we’d tried to photograph from a distance often over the past 10 days. It is reputed to have the best white wine in all of Burgundy. Our hostess Sophie showed us the rare white grape vineyards inside the Comte’s Domain (the fenced area including the estate and vineyards). It turns out the leaves on the vines turn from green to reds and golds in the fall, and eventually fall from the vines. We’d noticed the vineyards turning color during our stay here, and it is beautiful to see. We also learned about the difference between the Cote d' Nuit, the Cote d' Beaune, and the Cote d' Or...and another Cote I forgot. 

Sophie and Lynn in the cavern 

Next, Sophie took us into the wine-storage cave which dates back to the 13th century. Neat stuff! We learned about the storage of wines, and how the gross stuff sticking all over the old bottles, like thick spider webs, is actually a fungus which is GOOD for the aging wine. Go figure! Then, we had a formal wine tasting in the main building. We sat at our own private table, while our hostess explained the hierarchy of wines, and poured us samples of each of the various wines, starting with the lowest and ending with the most prestigious “Grand Crus”. We tried 5 different wines, and agreed our favorites were the last two…what a coincidence, they were the oldest and most expensive wines. It was an educational and fun afternoon, for sure! We bought a bottle to use in celebrating our trip, and headed out to find some supper!

Ageing wine, with fungus that is actualy good for the wine

Very unclassy selfie-taking during wine tasting...this is the third round...

Good night from Nuits-St.-George

Sophie, our hostess at the winery, suggested a Nuits-St.-George brassiere/cafe run by her friend, for a simple but good supper. We drove into that town, found some parking, and went looking. What a find! The town center of this little town is precious, as Lynn wrote about a couple of days ago. This was my first time wandering around here. We entered the “Cafe de Centre”, and immediately upon mentioning Sophie were befriended by the owner, Pierre. This guy and his brother (the chef) run a wonderful small restaurant/bar business, with Pierre being the talkative front guy. He’s lived all over the USA for short periods of time, worked for several months at Disney’s EPCOT French Pavilion in Orlando, and he is NOT reticent to talk to strangers in French or English. We had a delightful evening there with great food, drink, and conversation. At the end, he gave us each a small goblet of a mysterious after-dinner drink we learned was “Ratafia de Bourgogne” brewed by a friend of Pierre’s from grapes and some liquors I’ve now forgotten. What an unexpectedly fun evening after a great day!  We walked the small centre ville plaza, took a pic by the memorial bust of a famous guy, and called it a night.

Tomorrow we are heading out for a driving adventure, in a rented Citroen 2CV. We’re all excited and will report the results ASAP. Thanks for reading along! 

MORE trip photos are here if you want to see them:

TRIP PHOTOS

15. Dijon Visit in the rain

We don't stop for rain, unless it's really bad! 

No, we didn’t visit a mustard factory! Today we spent exploring the old city center of Dijon, the big city about an hour away, which is the capital of the "Cote d’Or"  …our part of France on this trip.  We’d avoided coming into the center of Dijon all week, based on our negative feelings about the place from driving  around parts of the outer city, where they put all the industry, big box stores, and modern buildings and residences. Yann and Valerie insisted we should see the old part of Dijon, so following their advice we headed over today. Rain was forecast, but we were undeterred! What a good thing.

Walking in to Dijon's old town center

We drive a Ford Galaxy rental car. It would be considered a small-to-medium size car in the USA, but over here the darn thing is HUGE! So, we’re always looking for easy parking, good size streets and no surprises on the road. Upon arriving near the Centre Ville of Dijon, we took the first big-size parking space we could find, and walked the rest of the way into the old part of town. What a good idea, as we got to see some churches, an Irish pub, and a huge ancient stone arch as we hiked in. This is Monday, so many shops were closed, but there was enough business being done by the others that the streets had a fair number of customers and  tourists looking around. 

Dijon history must be pretty interesting, as the architecture of the place is so varied. We saw a lot of buildings that extend out over the sidewalk, with wood beams accenting the design of the structure. This was a constant feature of buildings we saw in Brittany some years ago. Some buildings had elaborate colored tile designs on the roofs or towers or steeples, like we see all over the Cote d’Or. The old train station has apparently been converted to a huge covered market area, where the weekly big market takes place, instead of having merchants spread out all over the town selling from portable tents. That station looks like it came from the same designer who designed the Paris train stations we’ve seen…maybe from the mid-1800’s? Anyhow, the town was fun to walk all over and  explore.

This is REALLY OLD stuff, timbered upper floors extending out over the sidewalk. It reminds us of Brittany

Architecture differs every direction you look

Main plaza up by the bus and tram stop

USA never saw THIS kind of McD food! 

Lynn got to speak some French with some nice guys at a Nike shoe store, while trying to locate a bicycle shop for me. Of course, we visited a huge mustard shop in the middle of downtown, with hundreds of mustard flavors and products to choose from…we avoided the temptation to buy, too hard to get this stuff home in our suitcases. 

 We got hungry, as usual, and found a perfect solution: a sandwich store with an upstairs dining room where we could buy take-away food but still sit down inside to eat! We chose this place so we would not have to eat at McDonalds, which was across the street down the block! After our perfect quick meal, we walked past the McD’s, and saw this poster outside advertising food we have never seen at a McDonald's in the USA. Maybe France can teach us a little about fast food choices?

We were hungry enough to eat a cow, but skipped it. Smart Car decorated to advertise the Grill & Cow Restaurant

We loved seeing the electric tram/train that runs all over this town. Streamlined and very clean and inviting. They even planted grass between the rails in most places!!! LOTS of cyclists riding sensible city bikes and foldies, and lots of rental bikes placed strategically all over the place. This is my idea of a liveable large city by golly!

The rain got kind of bad eventually, so we headed back to the car. On the drive home, we were finally able to listen to the music I have stored on my cell phone, as Lynn bought us a good connection cable. Whew, no more horrible French pop radio or talk shows. Made a stop at an Aldi’s grocery in Nuit-St.-Georges to get some staples. Boy, we hated this place. It was like a low-end warehouse, with weird off-brand products and unappealing food…but they were busy inside, so maybe we are being too picky, huh? I’ve not been into an Aldi’s in the USA, but hope they provide a different atmosphere than this one did in France.

Apparently they don't run the Dijon carousel in the rain!  Lynn loved it anyhow

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