Blogs from Beaune, Burgundy, France, Europe - page 3

Wednesday October 17, 2012 – Day 11 We started our day in Beaune at the local street market, which is smaller on Wednesdays than it is on Saturdays, and picked up some cured olives and bread to go along with our cheese and salami from the day before for a picnic later in the day. With all of our supplies in hand we drove out into the wine country of Burgundy and came across one of our favorite wineries from when we were here in the year 2000, Chateau de Pommard. Little did we know how much had changed since our last visit. When we were here in 2000 we were greeted by the winemaker and taken on a small tour to the caves and tasted a few vintages. Now the winery has a visitor center, ... read more

Our Burgundy wine tour is today and we are very exited to learn more about the terroir and the wines of this region. We enjoyed our breakfast at hotel le cep which is served in the cellar. They have the coolest machine that makes fresh orange juice... I wish we could have filmed it! Our guides today are Joy and Rob. Lucky for us, Joy picked us up at our hotel at 9:00am in an Avis rental SUV because her range rover was having issues yesterday. Rob, her husband picked up a nice English couple and 4 individuals from Hong kong (1 guy and 3 girls). One of the girls was absolutely adorable. We met the other group on a hillside in the village of Nuit Saint George overlooking all the beautiful parcels of land with ... read more

We arrived in Chalon sur Saone early this a.m. and took the motor coach tour to Beaune, the capital of Burgundy wine region. We departed the boat at 9:00am and took a leisurely ride through the vineyards of burgundy region stopping along the way to take photos of this beautiful place. We arrived in Beaune and took a walking tour of the historical 15th century hospice. It was very interesting story about a wealthy couple that wanted to seal a spot in heaven so they decided if they did good things for the poor, they would get in! They built this hospice and erected statues of themselves all over so everyone would know who provided the location. Every Saturday in Beaune they have an outdoor market with produce, French products, antiques, etc. We really enjoyed the ... read more

Arrived in Beaune in the afternoon. Our hotel is most interesting: Hôtel de la Cloche - diligence du 16e siècle! A Diligence was a stopping point for coaches which delivered mail before the postal system had been established. At market bought Comte petite fromage du Jura; terrine de porc. Bought ficelle, then went to Casino supermarche for 2 - 1/2 bottles Burgundy wines for picnic. Drove routes des grands crus as far as Chagny to canal du Centre. Had a picnic beside canal. Drove back via small roads through wine towns of Chassagne-Montrachet, -Montrachet, Meursault, Pommard and to Beaune. Opened 1/2 bottle of Bouchard Aine et Fils--pretty good for €5. Lovely evening- went out in short sleeves. Sat next to interesting Irish couple with dog who own 2 houses in Luberon, apts in Malta amd Amsterdam; ... read more

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