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Blogs from Burgundy, France, Europe - page 5
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Recollections of my Study Abroad Experience in France: Introduction
Published: September 21st 2011Europe » France » Burgundy » Dijon
September 21st 2011
Hello Everyone: Even though I have been a member of Travel Blog for the past 4 years, I have decided to start again and rewrite my entries in an effort to improve them. From this time forward, I am including the latest date in order to remind readers the fact that I am writing down these entries today, however this particular blog and its sequential entries will be a recollection of my experiences studying abroad in France and traveling in Europe from August 24, 2006-May 16, 2007. However, I have included the location as to where the blog takes place in the location section. I have decided to rewrite this blog for the following reasons: 1) Give travelers an idea of what it was like living in France 2) Hopefully my story will help others plan ... read more
September 21st 2011
Note: This entry describes events that occurred in August 2006 in Dijon, France. Please keep checking this blog for more updated entries. August 24, 2006- I arrived in Lyon, France via plane at the St. Exuperey Airport from Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Miami, FL respectively. I had plenty of time before my train ride from Lyon Part-Deux to Dijon (about 2 hours) so I decided to take a coffee break. I went over to a small cafe in the airport that also served pastries. I ordered along with my espresso, a tarte au citron (lemon tart), and fromage blanc (lit. translated as white cheese). The tarte au citron was very good; it had a very strong lemon flavor and the texture of the custard was very soft and creamy, however the crust was too hard ... read more
Beaune - Les Joyeux Temps de La Vendange Part Deux
Published: September 5th 2011Europe » France » Burgundy » Beaune
September 1st 2011
Back To Beaune I'm returning to Beaune after a couple of years. My friends Nick and Anne have been living here for the last three years. Sadly they are having to return to the UK soon so this is one last visit before they leave. I am again visiting at the time of the Vendange, the annual wine harvest. The grapes in the area around Beaune are all picked by hand so at this time of year there is a lot of casual work available and a lot of people come into the area looking for work. This year we are fairly optimistic that one of Nick and Anne's friends has been able to arrange some work for the three of us. Le Shuttle Because I'm likely to be earning some money when I get to ... read more
August 8th 2011
Into France in the morning. Sounds a bit funny to say that, but it wasn't rally very far at all from San Sebastian. Immediately the drivers got better and the prices and roads got worse. Spanish drivers have supreme difficulty merging onto a freeway and, thankfully, that changed in France. A lot fewer crazy roundabouts, and French drivers are a lot slower than the Spaniards, or the Belgians – the Belgians are nuts. Nice cheese though. In France, that is. I've heard that Belgian cheese is simply boring. We headed to Condom (no jokes please) in the Armagnac region. Armagnac was pretty nice – neat and, I suppose, French looking. We found the municipal campsite easily. We had downloaded the Archies points of interest for camping, and they were heaps better than the standard TomTom ones. ... read more
August 1st 2011
Hello all, i realise the whole of italy passed without comment but i asssure it was due to lack of facilities rather than idleness. In fact what has become clear is that this trip is not quite the holiday i envisenged - with in most cases a day to see a major city, siteseeing becomes more of a mission than a repose. casing point was the hour run with my camera in tow that allowed me to explore loussanne. but jogging aside italy was lovely, verona undoubtably being the highlight- small but made a strong impression . the staple food for italy was pizza - not because we didnt fancy pasta but more to do with the fact that prices quickly doubled or quadrupled for a main meal. the nearest we got was some pasta we ... read more
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June 17th 2011
Dijon: Early Tuesday morning, we hopped on our first train in France to Dijon. A first class ticket made the journey so comfortable as we were both able to lay down in the compartment. We reached Dijon, a small town in the Burgundy region on our way south, in a matter of hours. We didn't have set plans on where to go and what to see in Dijon so we decided to just explore in the 4-5 hours we had available before our next train. We found a hotel near the train station who we were able to convince to let us leave our bags there. This was after trying 3 other hotels. We headed to the tourism office and took a map to the city. They informed us of a free bus that would take ... read more
June 4th 2011
We took a train from Paris to Dijon to spend some time in the country and maybe do a wine tour, biking etc. Like Paris, we decided to camp here also. Dijon is a small town, but still like any other European town, there were buses to get to the campsite, though it was not very far from main station. We stayed at Camping du Lac Kir. Unfortunately the day we landed there, it was cloudy and rainy. Our initial plans of going on a long biking trip were washed out. Also Rahul had got himself sick, so no real outdoor activity possible. On the first day, we just camped, walked around the town, had some good and bad food. By chance, we ended up at a very interesting restaurant. It was themed like a library ... read more
May 23rd 2011
bonjour mes amis I am working from a computer with a european keyboard, so please excuse the typos I am at the half-way point of my trip with respect to both time and location; I'm currently in the city dijon. it is a beautiful medieval city; but it is quiet and quaint, a much differnt atmosphere from the bustling streets of paris. I am staying in the old dijon part of the city, everything looks like it was built in the 1600s, at it probably was. I would compare it with backpacking in nigara on the lake or In Bruges; great for couples on a weekend holiay, but not as backpacker friendly as staying in a large city. To my knowledge there is only one hostel in the city; which i stayed away from due to ... read more
May 23rd 2011
i hope this posts, the free internet i'm using is sketchy... unsurprisingly, the burgandy wine tour today was the highlight of my stay in dijon. As I mentioned in my previous post, chardonnay and pino noir are the only two types of grapes harvest in this region; they also happen to be my favourites. The tour guide was very informative regarding the region's soil conditions and how to identify quality bottles of wine. after writing this I should probably go write down notes, i'm afraid after several glasses of burgeone (burgandy) wine, i may forget all i've learned. basically, over the past 2000 years of wine making in this region, they have everything down to a science. the qualtiy of wine may change over a couple of meters because of factors such as soil quality, amount ... read more
May 17th 2011
This panorama shot captures some of the beauty of the centre of Beaune - Place Carnot. Little brasseries, wine bars & restaurants fringe the park. It was a lovely spot to have lunch on a park bench or sip a French chardonnay as the sun sank over the roof tops.... read more
