We are finally having to focus more on direction than interesting places. We picked the destination of Tournon-sur-Rhone based on it being a good distance north towards Sens.
When we arrived in Tournon we were not initially impressed. It was a nice enough town with a nice view of the Rhone River. There were two river cruise boats docked near town. We learned that Tournon had a sister city on the other side of the river called Hermitage. They were connected by a wooden pedestrian bridge.
The wooden bridge across the Rhone between Tournon and Hermitage.
We found another aire for the night and headed into town. We did a pass thru Tournon and it was pleasant, and then headed over to Hermitage as Ton wanted to get some pictures of the Rhone and the river cruise boats. Once we reached Hermitage we saw they had a chocolate museum. The chocolate museum was really awesome. It is called Valrhona, and is attached to a factory by the same name. We decided not to take the tour, but just went thru the attached store. The store had all you could eat samples of all of their chocolates. Ron probably ate about 5€ worth of samples, and Ton about 4€ worth. The chocolate was excellent, and we were almost tempted to buy some but we were full from our free samples!
One of the river cruise ships pulling away from the dock in Hermitage.
On the way back we saw some vineyards on the Tournon side of the river that were really interesting looking. They were on this incredible slope of about 15 degrees with old stone walls between parcels. We decided to walk over to get a better view. They were even more impressive up close. It turns out that this is a Grand Cru ( the highest quality wine in France) for Syrah, and is considered the spiritual birth place for Syrah. So we are going to look for a bottle of the local stuff tomorrow to check it out.
The hills above Tournon which are supposed to be the spiritual home of the Syrah grape.
The plan for today was to visit Roussillon which is another one of the most beautiful villages in France, but we also had to find a place to dump our tanks, add water, and we needed to get some propane. Depending on when we had accomplished all of those things we would decide on the next step for the day.
We were up bright and early, so we headed over to Roussillon and were amongst the first arrivals of the day. Roussillon is famous in France for it’s red earth. It is another pretty village and very upscale, in fact Bradjelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) had their French house here. It was once again nice and worth a visit, but frankly the most interesting thing was watching a truck driver maneuver a large delivery truck down a street with literally inches to spare on each side while shop keepers were pulling in awnings, and moving flower pots out of the way. French truck drivers really earn their living here on these narrow streets and roads.
The buildings in Roussillon all have this red tint to them from the surrounding earth.
We have been trying to visit an olive oil factory for about a week and thought we had found one on the way out of Rousillon. After Ron and the GPS had several arguements about the best way we finally arrived at an olive oil factory quite near to where we spent the night. It was one of our disappointments of the trip. The staff was not very helpful, and the promised tour did not exist, so after a short walk thru we were out to François and deciding on our next step.
During the drive we passed thru a nice canyon between Gordes and Orange.
Ron found a winery in the Chateauneuf du Pape area that was a French Passion site, and we decided to see if we could stay there. French Passion sites are provided with our rental, and are wineries and farms throughout France that let you stay on their property for “free” if you are a member. The catch is that you are highly encouraged to sample their product. In the case of our stay tonight for roughly the cost of a normal campground we purchased two very nice bottles of wine, and got to enjoy a beautiful warm evening on a very peaceful winery in Provence. It is worth every penny.
Some of the vineyard at Chateau Cabrieres. If you look carefully you will see the incredible amount of stones in the vineyards. This apparently is what makes Chateauneuf du Pape wines famous.
Today we headed towards another one of the most beautiful villages in France. Gordes is considered a must see stop in Provence by most of the travel writers.
After an uneventful drive including a stop at a grocery store to replenish some critical items, and wine. We headed up to Gordes. As advertised it is quite striking, but has definitely been discovered by the rich and famous. A lot of the old farm houses have undergone renovation to make them appropriately comfortable for the well off. Ron was looking at a listing of homes for sale, and they were running 1.2 to 2.5 million Euro. As we walked into town we passed a beautiful 5 star hotel that we later checked and found out rooms could be had for around $500 per night.
The view of Gordes as you approach on the main road. The white umbrellas are the $500 per night hotel.
Having said that I can see why people are willing to spend that kind of money for Gordes. It really is striking and the town has an old world feel that is pretty magical. We arrived just as the weekly market was packing up for the day. We really enjoyed poking around town, and the views were worth the walk. At the end we ducked into a coffee shop for a beer and a coffee and sat on a balcony about 100 feet above a gorge. We were really enjoying it until a couple of groups sat down next to us and about 5 people simultaneously lit up cigarettes. There is a lot I like about the culture here and one of them is the abundance of outside dining, unfortunately smoking is still allowed in the outside dining, so Ton and I normally find ourselves inside to avoid the smoke.
A sample of the “roads” in Gordes.
We walked back to François for the night and enjoyed our free aire. Tonight our neighbors are mostly British, and we had a nice conversation with a couple from Birmingham.
Ton really liked these stone fences with the tops of stones set on end. This one was near our aire for the night.
Today was about Flamingos. After some muddling about in the morning and doing some laundry we were off to the Camargue which is a large delta where the Rhone River empties into the Mediterranean. It is a famous bird sanctuary.
There is an ornithological park as you drive into the delta, and we decided to stop and take a look not knowing what to expect. It turned out to be a great walk where we were surrounded by many different kinds of birds but the star attraction for the average Joe (or Pierre) were the flamingo’s. There were hundreds of them on display. Ton wore her battery out shooting pictures of them.
The bodies are slightly pink, but the wings are quite striking as this bird is showing. These are Rose Flamingo’s native to Africa, and Europe.
It was a really nice walk and in addition to the flamingos there were a lot of Heron’s. In fact the serious photographers with the long lenses were ignoring the flamingos and shooting the Herons. There must of been something significant over there, but we did not figure it out.
All of the serious photographers were concentrated around this area, we are not sure what the attraction was.
After a couple of hours of exploring and pictures we headed down the road to the sea to visit the town of Saintes Maries de la Mer. Driving in it did not make much of an impression on us. But when we pulled into the aire we figured there must be something to the town as there were easily 70 or 80 RV’s in the aire. We took a walk and it was a seaside resort, not a particularly fancy one, but pleasant. We decided that we would have dinner tonight to compare French seafood with Spanish. Spanish won.
The Mediterranean is apparently warm even in April, as the water was full of kids playing.
We decided to shift a little south to another part of Provence. The town of St. Remy de Provence was highly recommended to us, so here we are.
St. Remy turned out to be a very nice but touristy town. But it did have an interesting walk themed around Van Gogh. He spent a year here in a sanitarium trying to clear his head, and did some really nice painting. The walk had you follow a road out of town to the sanitarium where he stayed and periodically showed you sites where Van Gogh had painted pictures. It was quite fascinating and at several of the stops you could really see quite clearly the setting he used.
We think this is the setting for this picture.
At the end of the road was the sanitarium where he stayed, and it is still functioning as a sanitarium today having been founded around 1200 AD. The room where Van Gogh stayed is on display, as are the gardens that inspired some of his paintings. We really enjoyed ourselves and found the place fascinating.
Van Gogh’s room in the sanitarium.
On the way back we stopped at the ruins of the Roman settlement of Glanum. We poked around a bit and saw the Arch of Triumph, but decided to pass on visiting the Roman ruins.
Part of the Roman Arc, the Arc itself is a slightly more worn version of the one in Orange yesterday.
As we passed thru town we decided that this one of the more upscale towns we had been in, and it reflected in the price of the restaurants. So we decided to postpone our Provence meal, and headed back to François for a very late lunch, and a siesta.
We had an adventure today that we did not at all anticipate. Our plan was to shift about 40km’s from Pont du Gard to Orange to visit the Roman Theater in Orange. Enroute we were going to stop at a Carrefour to get some gas. Actually sounds like one of our easier days from a travel point of view.
We were rolling along on nice wide roads when we came into a little village. The roads were kind of narrow but we were used to the roads narrowing going into little villages. Then Ron missed a turn, the GPS reprogrammed and the roads were narrow but one way so Ron decided to follow the reprogram, and then we came to a point where the GPS wanted us to turn down a walkway…big problem. Ron parked and since we had come down a series of one way roads we could just not turn around and go back the way we had come. Ron on foot followed the one way road thru the village for 2 or 3 hundred yards and it looked doable, so back to François. Ton backed Ron down the road for the 20 or so yards to the turn, and just as we were getting ready to head down the road a fellow jumped in front of us and in rapid fire French told us that the GPS was wrong and we could not go that way. There was only one way out and he would show us, or words to that effect. Just as he was turning us around in very tight quarters another car came up behind us, and we managed to let him squeeze past, but rather than carry on he got out and began to help us turn around and get pointed in the right direction also. Ron was responding to commands of droit (right) and gauche(left), and a lot of vezzies (afterwards Ton and I decided it was the French version of come on, or keep going), we got turned around passing within inches of several parked cars, and liberally using the sidewalk (all two feet of it) when necessary. We got pointed at an opening that was maybe four inches wider than Françoise with both mirrors folded in. The two guys gave me a resounding Voila!, and a thumbs up. We squeezed down the alley, and popped back out on our nice wide main road. We shouted some Merci beaucoups (thanks much) at them as they were walking away, but without them our day may have been really a mess, so to the two anonymous French gentlemen, merci beaucoup.
This is about the width of the road we were squeezing François down.
We arrived at Orange 20 minutes later, and visited Carrefour which is turning into Ton’s favorite grocery in France. Stocked up with food for a few days we were going to get fuel, but it looked like a tight fit and Ron was a little skittish so fuel is tomorrow.
We finally made it to the Roman theater in Orange and it was really interesting and beautiful. It was built in the 1st century AD, and is incredibly huge for that era. The grounds will hold 10,000 people, and the theater wall behind behind the stage is over 100 feet tall. The scale is hard to describe and Ton had a tough time capturing it on film. We followed the audio guide throughout and it was fascinating. The theater is still used today for concerts and performances. The facade of the theater is also grandiose but it is undergoing renovation and we did not get a look at it.
The wall at the back of the stage of the Theater in Orange, it was one of the few walls that have survived from ancient Roman theaters.The seating area of the theater. It holds over 10,000.
After the theater we passed by the ancient Arc de Triumph of Orange. This Arch was built by veterans of Cesar Augustus legions who settled in Orange after they completed their service. It is to honor veterans of the Gallic Wars around 24 AD. We had actually passed it as it is in a roundabout on the main road in town on the way to the campground. But this time we were on foot and had time to take some pictures.
The Arc de Triomphe of Orange, built by the legionaries of Cesar Augustus.
Today we needed to get serious about going east. Our plan for the past few days has been to head to Provence, but we never quite got ourselves going that way. So today we abandoned our backcountry roads and jumped on the motorway for almost 200km’s to get to Pont du Gard.
This site is one of the most famous Roman sites in France, and features on a lot of travel sites advertising France. We decided that this would be a good place to begin our visit of Provence and southeast France.
We arrived in the early afternoon and it was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the high 70’s low 80’s. After a nice lunch Ton declared it was siesta time and Pont du Gard could wait.
Around 4 pm we wandered down to see the site. Pont du Gard is a three tier aqueduct that was built around 19BC. It stands over 160ft high above the river Gardon and was used to supply the city of Nimes. The aqueduct that the Pont du Gard supported was over 30 miles long.
The aqueduct at Point du Gard.
It is quite an impressive structure and very beautiful. The French are certainly much more laid back about managing historical things like this, and the atmosphere was more relaxed and informal than we are used to. People were swimming under the bridge picnicking on the grounds around it, there was not a policeman or ranger in site to keep order.
We walked back in the evening to get some more shots as Ton thought the sunset would be pretty there. She was right!Sunset.
We are parked in an aire next to a hotel in Fitou France. Do not try to find it on a map unless you have a very detailed map of France, it is somewhere near Narbonne.
After a slow start to the day, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and had a nice conversation with our German neighbors, who were a little confused at first when we did not respond to their initial conversation starters in French. After they sorted out we were not French they effortlessly switched to English. We had a nice time talking to them and getting to meet their dog. They are German versions of snowbirds, spending about 6 months a year in Spain and Portugal.
We decided to head into the town of Rose to have the meal we missed yesterday. We had a fantastic 4 course lunch for €13.50. This was a huge meal including a glass of Sangria for an aperitif, a bowl of mussels for an appetizer, paella for her main dish, and a creme brulet for desert. She had a choice of wine or water and chose wine. Ron had Sangria, calamari for his appetizer, a dish similar to paella but with noodles instead of Rice, and flan, because he was driving he had water. We were wowed with the quantity and quality of the food, and enjoyed people watching while we ate.
The town of Rose, on the Costa Brava, the Costa Brava may require a longer visit in the future.
One correction, all of the fields we were identifying as mustard are actually canola fields, or as they call them here Rapeseed. The yellow fields are still really beautiful.
Well we thought we were going to head east towards Provence, but instead we found ourselves in Spain. We realised we were really close to Spain this morning, and decided why not. So tonight we are parked up on a ocean front spot in a campground with at least 400 other campers.
François and Ron enjoying the beach before the mosquitos drove him inside.
From our site you can see the town of Rose about 400 yards away. We decided we were going to have a nice Catalan dinner there. About 3pm we decided to walk down to town to scout for a dinner choice and discovered there is a river between us and the town that you cannot see from the campsite. Usually these rivers are pretty shallow where they meet the sea so Ron thought we could cross over, but then we watched a pretty tall fellow wade up to his chest crossing over. Well there must be a bridge, so off to the office we went to find out how far. From here it is two kilometers up the road, and then two kilometers back to the town, so the round trip to town would be five miles. We had a nice dinner sitting outside François, and will have a nice Catalan lunch tomorrow.
Welcome to Spain.
This was our first time crossing from one country to another in the EU so we were curious what it would be like. It is much like crossing a state line at home, except there were three police doing random checks of vehicles, we were not selected. Also the contrast between the two border towns could not have been more different. The French town had incredibly tight roads with everyone trying to squeeze by each other at 5km, probably the most stressful 1km of road Ron has driven, in Spain a wide two lane road thru town.
The unfordable river, that is only in place a few weeks a year, that kept us from our Catalan dinner.
Ton has come up with a name for our trip, France Backcountry avec François. So far on this trip about 90% of our travel has been on what the French call D roads, these are roughly a cross between state highways and county roads in the US. Some of the roads have been one lane tracks where when you come across another car someone looks for a place to pull over and let the other car pass. The French handle this really well. Ron is still playing with the preferences on the GPS to try to avoid these roads, but since the speed limits are the same on a D road whether it is a one lane track, or a good two lane road with shoulders, our GPS has sent us into some interesting places, and often insists on sending us thru the center of small villages when there is a perfectly good by-pass that is 200 or 300 yards longer. Ron is going to have another go at the settings tonight to see if we can still stay on D roads without some of the really small roads we have been down.
We finally had to make a decision about what direction to go next. As we have been heading south we have been having an ongoing discussion about whether to head east or head west when we hit the Mediterranean, I think we have finally decided to head east towards Provence.
Today we visited Carcassonne Castle in the city of Carcassonne. The drive there was pretty quick and uneventful. The castle is a world heritage site that has been around since medieval times. It had fallen into disrepair and was rebuilt in the 1800’s. The rebuild is not historically accurate, but if you picture a Castle, Carcassonne is pretty much going to be what you are thinking of.
An exterior shot of the castle.
Even though it was early in the year it was pretty busy, the busiest place we have visited so far. We had a nice walk around the grounds, but decided to pass on the 9 euro admission fee to see the interior. The views are very impressive, and the size is quite large with the walls around the castle measuring almost 2 miles.
We are not sure whose idea the yellow paint was or if it is in anyway authentic.
We called it a day a little early and headed back for a nice Thai-French fusion meal Ton whipped up, using some ingredients she had brought from home, but substituting egg noodles for rice, and adding in some French vegetables. We finished up the night by sitting outside watching the sun set on the castle, and drinking some wine and eating some of our Cantal cheese. By the way we cannot differentiate between the cheese with the flowers in the grass, and the cheese without, they are both delicious.
An interior shot of a bridge from the outer to the inner walls. The roofs on the towers were added in the 1800’s.
Today turned into a maintenance day. We are at a campground in Rivieres and we did not move here. After we were done visiting Albi yesterday we moved to this campground for the night, but to tell the truth when I wrote the blog last night we had no idea what town we were in. When we woke up this morning we decided it would be a good day to take care of cleaning up and doing laundry. By the time we were finished with the laundry we decided to stay another night.
While we were doing the laundry Ton was reading about the local area and noted that this is one of the oldest wine producing areas in France. The area is called Gaillac and the original vineyards were planted during the Roman times, and for the Romans it was the major wine production area in Gaul (France more or less).
So when I extended us for another night I asked the owner of the campground to recommend a winery in the area. She recommended Domaine Escausses. So after a quick stop at Lidl (grocery store), and a stop to replace one of our propane bottles we headed up into the countryside to Domaine Escausses.
The mustard is taller and a little further along than what we saw in Burgundy.
The setting for the winery is right out of a movie. The views are spectacular, and the tasting room is small and quite nice. We were met by the 7th generation winemaker who in addition to pouring wine for us was taking care of her children. We had a great discussion about the unique varieties around Gaillac. Her white wines were superb. Her daughter is about 9 or 10 years old and is already in training to be the 8th generation winemaker. She was kind enough to give us some ideas about places to visit going forward. So even though it was a maintenance day we had time to enjoy another touch of France.
The day started out with a visit to the cheese shop under the supervision of Patrick the campsite owner. He also had a French couple in tow who turned out to be from the Yonne department of Burgundy which is our honorary French home, as that is where François the RV is based. We ended up with about 1/3 of a kilo each of three Cantal cheeses, one is called Cantal, one was called Salers, and the last was a blue cheese from the area which one food critic labeled the best he had ever tasted. The Salers cheese is a variant of Cantal that is only produced in two months when a certain flower is in bloom in the region, as the flowers mixed with the grass makes the cows milk that much better, you have got to love the French! We will give you a report later if the flowers make a big difference.
Patrick leading us down the road to the cheese store.
After two days of cold and damp weather we decided to head south in search of sun and heat. We had originally picked out a target of a town that was about 130km as the crow flies. But when Ron punched it into the GPS, the route said it was over 400km’s. Ron cursed and figured he had punched in the coordinates wrong. But after some further study of the map it turned out that this was really a case of the proverbial you can’t get there from here.
This cow is a Cantal whicn is a breed unique to the area around Salers.Ton likes Cows and this calf is the cutest she has ever seen, it almost looks like a sheep.
Now it was Ton’s turns to study maps, she proposed the town of Albi as a destination. It was south, the roads looked reasonable, and best of all it was the hometown of Toulouse-Lautrec which is both of our favorite French Artist.
The bridge in the foreground was built around 1300 and is still used for traffic today.
The plan for the night was to stay in the Aire in Albi. The GPS led us close to the medieval old town down increasingly narrow roads, and only about 500 yards from the final destination we came to an arch that the road was going under, but the road under the arch was filled with construction equipment. After some studying of the map, and a little maneuvering in tight quarters we headed to our alternative route to the aire. About half way there we fell in behind a Dutch RV that appeared to be going to the same place. Again within about 500 meters of the aire we ran into some more construction and the Dutch pulled over and parked. Ron parked up behind them and knowing that almost all Dutch speak English he walked up and asked them about the aire. It turns out that the road to the aire is under construction and while you can barely make it there, it was full anyway. The husband said that they were thinking about parking for the night at a site we had passed on the way in, but the wife switched from English to Dutch and told him no way they were parking there. I don’t speak a word of Dutch but I didn’t need to to understand that conversation.
Ton and I decided to just leave François where he was and head into Albi to have a look around. Albi turned out to be a real Gem. This is why you do these trips without agendas, to find places like this. Our first stop was the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. The museum has an incredible collection of his art, because apparently the Louvre turned down the collection when his parents offered it to them. The museum is housed in the Palais de la Berbie which is the old palace of the archbishop of Albi. The building is as impressive as the art collection.
An example of the art in the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.The exterior of the Toulouse-Lautrec museum which is in the old palace of the archbishop.
Next door is the Cathedral of Albi, which is the largest brick church in the world. We went into the Cathedral and it was as impressive as the outside. We got a break as one half which usually costs 5 euro to get in was open in preperation for a concert so we got a free look at it.
The plan today was to hit two villages in the Cantal region of France. Cantal is famous for it’s cheese and the ruggedness of it’s mountains. We experienced the ruggedness of the mountains and enjoyed the least populated part of France we have been in so far. At one point we went almost 15 kilometers between two towns which is a record for us in France.
Passed by this castle very early in the day. It is really striking, do not know anything at all about the history of the place though.
We stopped up in Cheylade to visit their church which is famous for its roof and nave. It was a nice spot and while we were in there we had a good conversation with a group of Belgians who showed up to take in the church.
A shot of the ceiling of the church in Cheylade. The ceiling tiles are from the 15th century after the church was rebuilt.
After getting confirmation from the Belgians that the pass was open we headed towards Salers. Salers is considered one of the most beautiful villages in France. It has retained almost all of it’s medieval structure. After years of obscurity that allowed it to stay virtually unchanged for centuries it has been discovered, and last year had over 400,000 visitors.
One of the many medieval buildings in Salers that are still in use today.
It is certainly a nice place in a nice location, but maybe it was the bad weather (cold and wet), but we were both a little let down by the town. It felt a little too touristy and more commercial than we expected. (I think our bad taste started by having to pay 3euro to park François when the parking lot was empty.)
The city walls of Salers. Salers is considered one of the five most beautiful villages in France.
When we first arrived we went over to the city campground for the night, but were totally perplexed about how it worked. There was what appeared to be a proper campground, but it did not appear to have any water on site, but it did have electricity. There was also an aire next door. The perplexing part was there was not a soul on site to take money or give directions. After wandering around for a while we decided to head into town and come back later and see if we could figure the place out. When we returned a couple of hours later the situation was the same, no one on site and no one using the facility. We decided we would grab a spot in the area that looked like an aire. While we were eating the Gendarme (national police) passed thru a couple of times without moving us on so we figured we must be legal and free. When Ron went out for his evening walk he ran into a gentleman who turned out to be the campground manager. Patrick is quite a character and we ended up talking to him for quite a while and he is going to take us into town for cheese tomorrow. But our free site turned into 13 euro when he collected the fee.
Today we reluctantly left Burgundy. But before leaving we wanted to take a look at some more of the Beaujolais country. Somewhere around Julien we made a wrong turn and quickly found ourselves on some small mountain roads heading into the Haute Beaujolais. It turned out to be a nice mistake as it is beautiful country. The Haute Beaujolais looks like it is dairy country with lots of valleys full of pastures and a pure white breed of cow we do not have in the US. After a while of wandering around and completely unsure of exactly where we were (reminds me of a line from Band of Brothers when one soldier asks if they are lost, the officer replies we are not lost, we are in France), we decided to punch in our final destination for the day and let the GPS take us there.
This breed of white cow is pretty large and all over Burgundy. We have never seen anything like this breed in the US. The background is typical of the country we drove thru today.
After a couple of hours and our first accidental experience of a French A road (think interstate with tolls) we ended up at Le Puy de Dome. It is an inactive volcano cone, where you are supposed to be able to see 11 departments of France from. The weather was not ideal as it was cold and windy, with high clouds. But the views were there to see, just a little gray from the clouds. The wind made it a little uncomfortable but we completed the circuit around the dome.
The view from the top of the Puy de Dome. Not a great day for photography but we will not be back on this trip. We think it would be spectacular on a bright day.
At the top is the ruins of a roman temple to Mercury built around 124 AD. The Puy de Dome apparently has been a tourist attraction for quite sometime.
Some of the ruins of the Temple of Mercury on Puy de Dome. Puy means volcanic hill in French.
After a week with Francoise it was time to fill up for the first time. The cost was $129 for 19 gallons which is $6.78/gallon. The good news is the distances between things to do are a lot less, so our daily cost of fuel so far is less than at home. On this trip our biggest cost has been admission to sites. Interestingly we are spending less per night than at home for campgrounds and we have not really tried to find free spots which abound around here.
François is the RV in the middle. Taken from the top Puy de Dome.
We woke up to a pretty steady rain in our Aire in Cluny. Ton pointed out that I had been throwing the term Aire around in the blog when there is nothing like it in the US. An Aire is a very basic place for RV’s to park up for the night. There are thousands of them in France and they range from designated areas in parking lots with no services, to parking areas with electric, water, and dump stations. Most of them do not provide electric, but do provide a place to get rid of the waste water. A surprising amount of them are free, and the rest charge a nominal amount. The towns put them in figuring if you park up for the night you will end up dropping a few Euro somewhere in town.
Typical countryside in Beaujolais. It is as green as Oregon this time of year.
After a quick check of the weather and seeing that it was supposed to clear up shortly, we hit the road. The intent was to follow the route of one of the scenic drives in Ton’s DK Backroads France book. The drive was called the heart of France and was about 60km’s. We managed to keep on it for most of the trip though there were a couple of unexpected detours caused by missed turns.
Typical vineyard just as the bud is breaking on the vine.
Around lunch we came to Chateau de la Greffirere that advertised tasting and a museum. When we arrived we were met by a lady who asked if we spoke any French at all, when we said no, she looked a little flustered but began pouring us wine. A couple of minutes later we were greeted by another lady who completed the tasting and gave us a tour of the facilities. At the end she opened up the real prize for us and as it was lunch time handed us an English book and went off to lunch. The museum was fantastic as it was full of antique wine production equipment. We spent about an hour wandering around and really enjoyed ourselves.
Antique wine making equipment.
Leaving we continued following the Heart of France drive, but went amiss somewhere and ended up in the town of Macon. It felt more urban than anything else we have encountered so we punched in the place we planned to stop for the night and let Garmin guide us from there.
For the night we are staying at a France Passion site on a winery called Domaine Mortet. We were greeted by Jean Pierre Mortet after we parked up for the night. He was just in from the fields, but took us down into his cellar for a personal tasting. It was fun and very interesting speaking to Jean as he is a literally a one man show. He is the owner, winemaker, vineyard manager, and sales manager. He took over the winery from his father, who dropped in while we were tasting. We want to thank Jean Pierre for his hospitality.
Jean Pierre and Ton in the cave of Domaine Mortet. Thanks so much Jean Pierre.
Last night we decided to head south for the trip. It took us up to now to finalize our plans, though we are going to make daily plans so how far we move each day is up to debate. The problem is we keep finding things to do so we are not covering much distance. In fact after 6 days we are sill in Burgundy and are only 175 miles from our starting point.
Today we had two stops in mind, a cheese factory outside Dijon and the Cluny Abbey. The first stop was a factory that specializes in soft cheese manufacture. We did the self guided tour. This involved peering thru windows at workers who tried to look unimpressed and watching videos of the process. It was interesting if a little impersonal. The fun began at the end where we were given five cheeses to taste and of course some bread and wine to go with them. Ton really liked the cheeses as she likes softer cheeses. Ron is a cheddar fan which makes him pretty much a charlatan, at least in Burgundy.
Some of the workers in the plant performing one of the three cleanings each cheese gets.
Our long drive of about 60 miles began after that. On the way to Cluny we came to the town of Cormatin it was pretty well developed and we where trying to figure out why, when we saw an interesting Chateau on the river. We were already by it when we decided to go back and check it out. The signs said open, but the door to the ticket office was locked and the tourist office was also closed for lunch. So we had to settle for some photos over the fence in the parking lot before moving on to Cluny.
Looks like it would have been an interesting walk but we could not find anyone to take our 6 Euros.
Our destination for today was the Abby of Cluny. At one time the largest building in Christendom before the building of St. Peters in Rome. On arrival in town we were looking for the town aire. After much circling around including one trip into the heart of the town down narrow one way streets we found a parking lot kind of in the right part of town. It had four or five RV’s parked up so we decided why not join them.
The original church went from the point of this photo to the spire below. That spire is one of the three that were in place in the church.
We headed into town to take the Abby tour. The Abby is now mostly in ruins with only 10% of the original buildings still standing. What is there is really impressive and it does not take much imagination to see the beauty of the remainder. The rest was lost because the order that originally built it ran out of money to maintain it and they ended up selling it to the town. The town then dismantled the church and sold the stone locally and in Paris. If it was standing today in it’s finished state it would surely be one of the biggest attractions in Burgundy if not France.
A view of the town of Cluny from the tower of Fromagges next to the Abby.
When we returned to our parking lot there were only two other RV’s left so Ron came to the conclusion that this was not the aire. After some googling he got a map to the aire. When we arrived it was clearly an aire. The problem was that instead of being free as advertised it cost 10 Euro, and you had to call the town police to pay up, and failure to call in a timely manner increased the cost to 22 Euro. Eventually we found a nice lady who made the call for us. So tonight we are watching a parade of horses go by to the local stables in the town Hippodrome next door.
Today we planned on spending the day exploring Dijon. The jet lag is finally wearing off and we woke up at a pretty normal time after sleeping thru the night.
Yesterday we had purchased a walking guide of Dijon from the Tourist Office. It is called The Owls Trail. On the main church in Dijon sometime in the 16th century someone (no one is sure who) added an owl on one of the side walls. The legend is that if you touch it with your left hand (the one closest to your heart) and make a wish it will come true.
The lucky owl on the side of the Church of Notre Dame. Notice how worn it is from all of the people looking for good luck.
They have embedded little owl plaques in the sidewalks thru out downtown and all you have to do is follow them in a loop to see most of the main sites in town. It really is a nice system and a fun way to make your way around town.
A sample of the cute owl embedded in the sidewalk.
Because today was market day we decided to start our Owls Tour at the market. The market building is a cast iron building built in 1875. The market was primarily meat and cheese, with the cheese places having the longest lines of locals. We did not end up buying anything but enjoyed window shopping.
Chickens prepared for cooking.
Following the owl around town we were overwhelmed with churches, old mansions, old shops, and palaces. To see so much first rate medieval and renaissance architecture in such a small area was impressive to Ron as it is his first visit to continental Europe.
Ron liked this building a lot.
Having spent a couple of hours wandering around Dijon we decided it was time for a break and some lunch. We went to a restaurant the winery had recommended yesterday and each had the Plat du Jour. The main course was a stuffed chicken with sauce and noodles. The desert was small plates including a pudding, a creme brulee, and an espresso. It was a good deal at 14 euro’s.
We did some window shopping in some of the modern stores, and a department store before deciding to head back to François (Ton decided that the RV was too classy for a name like Frenchy). Ron missed the turn heading out of town despite having done the exact same roundtrip yesterday, and led Ton on a 1/2 hour wander thru Dijon before finally getting back on track.
At the end of the day including Ron’s wandering around lost we posted over 10 miles on the Fitbit. Not bad for a couple of old people.
The jet lag is starting to wear off a bit and we were both up and moving around a little earlier. We were undecided about the day as it is supposed to rain this afternoon, and it was spitting a little this morning to give us a taste.
We did want to visit a winery and after much research Ton decided on Bernard Rion Sarl in the village of Vosnee Romanee. It was a great choice. We were met by the owners wife as we pulled up in front. She assigned us to Bastien who gave us a personal tour of the winery and poured about 8 or 9 wines for us to taste. During the pouring the wife came down and offered us some truffles and bread to go with the tasting from their kitchen. A little later the owner Bernard came in and said hello, and offered us some tips on where to find good beer in the area. We decided to buy only two bottles as we do not have a lot of room. Ron was very tempted by the Grand Cru but at 90 Euro a bottle it seemed a little extravagant for anything we could whip up in the RV. We instead settled for a couple of lessor wines that were still very good, and one we will save for a special night before we leave.
Ron pretending he is a tasting room worker in France.
As we are learning the system here we needed some more supplies so we popped in to another grocery store for some more stuff. After tasting some great wine, Ton was fascinated with the wine selection in the grocery and decided to buy a 1.99 Euro bottle to compare with what we had just tasted. We are drinking it as we write this and it is quite enjoyable, though not up to the standard of Bernard Rion Sarl.
Bird along the Canal De Bourgogne. Not a species we are familiar with.
When we arrived at Dijon the weather was not very threatening so we decided to head into town. It was about a mile and half walk mostly along the river to the old part of town. Tomorrow we are going to explore the town seriously, but today we visited the Musee Del Bel Artes in the old Duke of Bourgogne’s palace. It was a very impressive museum with great medieval art and armaments. The palace itself is massive and reflects the power the Duchy of Bourgogne had during the early Renaissance period. It was under construction so there will be more to see in the future.
The square outside the Duke of Bourgogne’s palace.
We decided to head back a little early as the sky was starting to threaten rain. We made it back just in time before a really large thunderstorm moved thru the area complete with lightning and a real gully washer of rain that would have competed with any thunderstorm in the mid-west.
We are still fighting a bit of jet lag so we had another slow start to the day. We finally hit the road about 1030 for the 120 km trip to Beaune. We told the GPS to avoid tolls so we found ourselves driving thru some really beautiful country on roads that ranged from two good lanes with passing zones every few miles to 11/2 lane roads thru small villages. We probably only averaged about 40mph but it was worth it for the view.
This stretch of road is typical with fields and small villages. This stretch was not particularly narrow.
We arrived in Beaune around lunch time with the intent of checking out the free aire, but we missed the sign going thru town despite the really light traffic. We saw the sign for the municipal campground and decided to go ahead and pay up for the night.
After a nice lunch prepared by Ton we headed into Beaune. It is a well preserved medieval city. Our primary stop for the day was going to be the Hospices De Beaune. On the walk there, and as we were entering the downtown “tourist” core suddenly there were sirens converging on the area in mass. Unfortunately in these times we were worried that something really bad was happening. As it turned out Beaune is hosting a “Police Film Festival” this weekend, and what we heard were a bunch of guys whose hobby is to fix up cars and dress like foreign police. So when we got down town we were treated to the site of a bunch of American Police cars including two NYPD, one California Highway Patrol and one LAPD cruiser. There was also a 1950’s Cadillac painted as an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Car. While the theme was definitely American there were a couple of antique French Police Cars, and a group of guys dressed up like Italian Carabiniere (national police) complete with a Maserati.
One of several “American” Police cars we came across in Beaune.
The Hospice De Beaune was built in 1443 and was active as a Hospital until 1972. The thought that went into it is quite impressive for its time and allowed it to function for over 500 years. But this being France it was partially endowed by the production of wine on site, and the wine from the Hospice is still very sought after.
The roof of the Hospice de Beaune is done in a traditional Burgundian style with colored tiles.
The original plan for today was to visit Auxerre which is an interesting looking medieval town. We are both fighting jet lag so after some conversation at 130 am we both finally fell asleep until after 9am. So the day got off to a late start. The first stop was another grocery store to pick up the things we missed yesterday.
After that we headed into Auxerre to find a place to park. The first choice was going to be the Aire but it was closed. We then decided to bite the bullet and go to the municipal campground, when we arrived the office was staffed, but it turns out it was also closed. They recommended a place in Vincelles and after some wandering around admiring the countryside we ended up in a nice campground, the receptionist informed me that we were the first Americans he had ever checked in, at first he could not find the US in the database in his computer and asked if we minded being listed as British, but a few seconds later he proudly informed us that he had found the US and we would be listed properly in their database.
After a quick lunch we headed to the Bailley Lapierre Caves. The caves were originally an under ground stone quarry to supply building in Paris and operated from the middle ages till the 1920’s. It was converted to a wine production facility in 1972. The scale is impressive as we drove the RV (Ton is calling it Frenchy) into the cave for parking. The entire facility is underground in the caves leftover from the quarry. The tour was pretty interesting though we both regretted our lack of French. We tasted some brut at the end and while we are generally not big fans of sparkling wine we enjoyed this one.
In addition to the wine there is some nice art work along the way.
We finished the day with a nice walk along the canal and River Yonne. The mustard is in full flower and the yellow fields lined the river. It was quite nice.
Mustard field with old church whose bells we have been listening to all day.
