wine – Page 3 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

May 25, 2019 Wurzburg GE

Tonight François is parked about 20 yards from the Main River in Wurzberg. We have had a couple of river barges come by close enough to look in the windows, and they can look into François. We even waved at a guy going by in his room. But while we have a great view out the front window, this is the closest we have ever been parked to our neighbors on each side. We cannot use our side door, and must exit from the front drivers door whenever we come and go.

One of the river barges passing about 30 feet in front of François. The hills in the background are hundreds of acres of vineyards.

Ton really liked this fountain on the pedestrian mall in Würzburg.

Würzburg is a beautiful city that was almost completely destroyed during WWII. The British Royal Air Force firebombed the city in 1945, and when the American army arrived at the town the Germans blew the bridges and made it clear they were going to defend the town. Needless to say by this point in the war, with the end in sight we were not interested in taking any unnecessary casualties. So we just sat back and bombarded the city with artillery until we completed the destruction the British had started.

The Residence of the Prince-Bishop that was almost totally gutted during WWII.

The Germans rebuilt the town after the war, and it is a very pretty river town in a great setting with vineyards surrounding the town on the hillside. There were a couple of landmarks that were not completely destroyed by the allies. The Residence of the Prince -Bishop was largely destroyed, this was an 18th century palace along the lines of Versailles, but some of the rooms were still standing and luckily one of the “Monuments Men”, a group of US Army officers with architectural or art backgrounds tasked with preserving the art and buildings of Europe showed up in town and helped procure the needed materials to preserve what was remaining. As a result several monumental frescoes were preserved that would have been lost.

We took a guided tour of the residence, and the guide was fantastic. He really brought the building to life, and had a great blend of knowledge and a dry sense of humor that made the tour fantastic. He was able to handle questions from the group with aplomb that we really admired. Because of him the history of the residence came to life in a way that we did not expect.

Some of the Garden at the Prince-Bishops residence met to imitate Versailles.

We also had lunch at a local restaurant that had been in business since the 1300’s. The food was good and we are sure we missed a real opportunity due to language. Two ladies next to us seemed really fun, and while we tried to engage with them and them with us the lack of a common language really stifled what we are sure would have been a really fun and interesting conversation.

Würzburg has a pedestrian bridge over the Main River and the tradition is that you go to the bridge and have a glass of wine. We are not sure how old the tradition is, but it is a great way to spend the evening so we participated. When we arrived about 8pm the bridge was packed with people drinking wine and enjoying a band. But around sunset at 9pm we looked around and realized the band was packing and the crowd was nearly gone.

Ton enjoying some local wine on the Main River Bridge.

The Main River waterfront with the Catholic and Lutheran Churches in the background.

So a little disappointed we headed back to François for a late dinner, and bed.

May 14, 2019 Mainau GE

Woke to blue skies, so morale is up for the day. We decided to spend another day here to further explore the area. As we walked into town we decided to head over to Mainau Island to explore what is called the Flower Island.

We had not done any research, but knew we had to take a ferry there. The ferry was a little expensive, but the shock was the lady who sold us the tickets said there was a €20 charge to get onto the island once we landed that we should buy on the boat ride over. At this point we were committed so on the ride we were feeling a little guilty about the cost, questioning our decision, and vowing to do more research next time.

Meersburg from the ferry as we were leaving. The castle is in the upper left.

When we began the walk it became clear that the decision was a good one. The island which is 110 acres is a giant botanical garden that is really well done. The island is owned by a Duke and Duchess and was originally a Grand Dukes residence. There is a strong Swedish royal connection, and the Swedish flag flies conspicuously on the residence.

A really cute topiary that greets you when you enter the island celebrating the flower island theme.

During different times of the year they feature different flowers and for April and early May it was Tulips. The flower gardens featured over a thousand varieties of Tulips interspersed with other flowers.

Some of the tulips on display with other flowers mixed in, really well done.

Another beautiful flower patch with the Swedish tower in the background.

In addition they had a petting zoo full of cute animals, and a butterfly building with thousands of butterflies flying around that we got to walk thru.

A Shetland Pony pony that Ton thought was really cute.

Ton’s favorite butterfly amongst the thousands in the butterfly building.

This lady was kind enough to pose for a couple of minutes while Ton and several other people took pictures of the butterfly in her hair.

Their Arboretum was full of very interesting trees most of which we could not identify, but interestingly they had about 15 or 20 Sequoias from California. Beside the tulips there were other flower gardens including poppies, and rhododendrons.

A giant sequoia that had been moved from California at some point.

While we may not have known what we were getting into when we got on the ferry there was no doubt that it was a great decision. Mainau is by far the best botanical garden we have visited in the world. What we thought would be a quick couple of hour visit turned into a whole day on the island.

We ended the day by visiting the most famous winery in Meersburg Staatsweingut. We tried a couple of their whites, a red and a rose that was labeled Spätburgunder we liked the rose and asked what grape it was made from. After some asking around amongst the staff it turns out that Spätburgunder is German for Pinot Noir.

Heart shaped vines outside the tasting room at Staatsweingut.

September 24, 2018 Chartres FR

Our plan when we arrived was to head towards Spain, so of course we drove north today to Chartres. Along the way we decided to visit Normandy and Brittany on our way to Spain, so we had to divert north to get to Normandy.

We decided to visit Chartres primarily to see its Gothic Cathedral. We visited Sens Cathedral the other day which is billed as the first Gothic Cathedral, and Chartres is supposed to be the best example of a Gothic Cathedral. Chartres still has its’ original stained glass as during both wars they removed it and stored it safely. During WWII the cathedral was in danger as the allies moved towards Paris, but an American Colonel successfully negotiated with a German General to declare Chartres an open city, so there was no battle fought for the city.

The exterior of the Chartres Cathedral. Note the contrast between the recenly cleaned upper part, and the uncleaned lower part. The maintenance of these buildings is daunting.

On our way out of Chinon we decided we wanted to visit a winery, we drove thru the countryside only to find it was closed. Disappointed again, we wrote off getting a taste of any Chinon wine, but on our way out of town Ton spotted the new tasting room for the winery we had driven out into the country to see. Pierre and Bertrand Couly had opened a new tasting room on the highway to Chartres, Chinon Red wines are what we call Cabernet Franc in the US. We spoke to the wife of the owner and she did a great job explaining the wines of the area. She was aware of Oregon wines as her husband had spent some time at Sokol Blosser winery in Oregon in the 1980’s.

The very fine winery Pierre & Bertrand Couly. As the owner said you do not have to have an old facility to make traditional wines.

The three hour drive to Chartres was uneventful as the “N” road that we used most of the way was quite good. We parked in a free overnight spot, and walked about a mile into town to see the cathedral. The cathedral was indeed impressive, and the interior stain glass windows were among the best we have seen in France. The cathedral was constructed in the early 1200’s after the previous Romanesque Cathedral had burned. The cathedral is deservedly a UNESCO world heritage site. Besides admiring the beauty of the building we also again discussed the maintenance of these immense buildings. Just keeping the exterior clean is a full time job.

One of the stain glass “Roses” at Chartres, this one dates from around 1210 and is the original glass.

After touring the cathedral we decided not to wait for the light show, so we walked back to François. Frankly we were a little peeved with one of the attendants who would not let us take the last crypt tour, and did it in a way that seemed unnecessarily officious to us while simultaneously refusing to speak English, even though we had just heard him giving an explanation of the tour in perfect English to another person. I hope he was just having a bad day. We had a light dinner and a relatively early night as we have a long drive to Normandy tomorrow.

Some of the art work in side the Cathedral.

April 26, 2018 Tournon-sur-Rhone FR

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 nice 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 nice, 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 Tournan which are supposed to be the spiritual home of the Syrah grape.

April 12, 2018 Rommaneche-Thorins FR

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 coutryside 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 guidebook 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.

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

October 2, 2018 Bordeaux FR

Everyone we talked to over the last few days told us we had to go to Bordeaux. Ron was a little intimidated with the idea of driving into a big city, and there are no official aires or campgrounds in the city. After some research our Dutch Parking App listed a parking lot next to a soccer stadium and municipal pool that had good access to the city by bus.

One of the new trams in Bordeaux, there is a lot of work going on to expand the tram lines.

To everyone who told us not to miss Bordeaux thank you we both enjoyed it very much. It is a medium sized city with a very well developed transit system that was easy to use. The waterfront promenade goes on for a couple of kilometers and is wide and pleasant to walk. The promenade has cafes on one side, and river cruise ships, and one very expensive yacht on the other.

These Buildings fronted the river. Bordeaux is one of the larger ports in France.

We visited the World of Wine Museum which is a little pricey, but a very modern multi-media museum, and the entrance did come with a taste of one wine from their world selection. The different multimedia displays included something to taste touch, and many different ways of visually presenting information about wine. It was interesting to see how curators are trying to integrate all of the audio visual stuff that is available now. We also got a small taste of French humor in some of the presentations which was fun.

Most museum stores have books and t-shirts for sale, this one has wine. My kind of museum.

After cutting ourselves off after over three hours in the museum we headed down town to look at some of the buildings in town. The city center is quite nice, and looks like it was not terribly damaged during WWII despite being a major base for German U-Boats. With a city as tuned into wine as Bordeaux is the cafe scene is quite extensive, and a lot of people were enjoying an afternoon drink, so we decided to join them for a beer. We had a couple of French microbrews and they were quite satisfactory.

October 1, 2018 St. Laurent Medoc FR

We spent the day exploring the wine region on the west side of the Gironde River. This area has some of the most expensive wines in the world. To get there we had two choices, a 100km drive around the Gironde and thru Bordeaux, for the time and gas, or a 20 minute Ferry Ride that would put us right in the middle of the wine area we were aiming towards, for cash money. We opted for the ferry ride because Ron is a sucker for ferries, and does not like driving thru big cities.

François posing in front of a windmill and grape vines.

We really wanted to see the town called Margaux which is the center of the Premier Cru wines. As we were driving there, harvest was in full swing everywhere. This limited our opportunity to visit wineries as the smaller wineries that we tend to visit were closed due to the harvest. When we got to Margaux the town itself did not make much of an impression, besides having a couple of larger than normal homes it could have been any small French village.

Surprisingly to us they harvest a great deal of the grapes in Bordeaux with machines.

We decided to get out to take a quick walk thru town, and were about to head back to François when we saw a winery that was open, in France we have learned that an open sign does not always mean they are open. We were poking around the outside trying to decide when a lady stuck her head out of the door and informed us they were open. We went in with her and found ourselves in the poshest place we have been to in quite a while. She offered us a tour of the winery for €50 each. We decided to splurge for a glass of wine and some desert instead. While we were savoring our small moment of poshness, another American couple came in and joined us. We had a nice conversation with them before heading out. The wine was really good.

Ron enjoying a good wine, and trying to look like he belongs in such a nice place.

On our way out of town we saw the signs for Chateau Margaux whose wines retail for over $1200 per bottle and decided to do a drive by. On arrival we saw that their parking lot was pretty full so we turned into the winery, but were stopped by a security guard and told to turn around. We clearly are not Chateau Margaux customers!

Chateau Margaux where we were not welcome.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around looking at the Chateaus, and the harvest process before parking up for the night in a little village in the center of the wine country. The village of St. Laurent Medoc is not nearly as posh as Margaux so we fit in.

September 30, 2018 Blaye FR

We had an early start to the day. The weather continues to be great, highs in the low 70’s and lows in the low 50’s. We headed into Bordeaux which is the home of Cabernet Sauvignon, the area we wanted to visit produced some of the most expensive wines in France.

Our Dutch App that we use to locate places to stay recommended we stay at a winery called the Marquis de Vauban. It was free so we punched it in as we left Rochefort, after a nice relaxing Sunday drive of about 110Km’s we arrived. Our expectation was a spot in a parking lot. We were very pleasantly surprised to find we are parked right in the vineyard of the winery with electricity, and water provided. We went into the tasting room and signed up for the 4pm English tour.

We had a few hours to kill so we walked into the town of Blaye to see the fortifications there which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This is another fort designed by the French designer Vauban, (the same guy our winery is named after). It was designed in 1660 on the site of a medieval fort on the River Gironde. The Gironde is the largest River estuary in Europe and it is about 3 miles wide here. The purpose of the fort was to protect Bordeaux from ships coming up the Gironde. It is an immense fort and was put to the test in 1814 when the British besieged it. The fort withstood the siege and kept the British from getting down the Gironde. It was decommissioned after WWII and turned over to the town.

Looking across the Gironde River towards the town of Paulliac. Goats have taken over one of the outer parts of the fort.

An inland entrance to the fort with a bridge over the dry moat facing the town.

We took our winery tour and tasting with a couple from Wales. After the tour we took a nice horse carriage ride into town to top off the night. While we were relaxing there was a knock on the door of the RV and it was the guide from the horse carriage wanting to know if we wanted an aperitif for the night, of course we did. The aperitif was poured from a used Evian water bottle. After everyone from the campground got their glass he asked what it was, we had no idea, but felt better when none of the other guests knew either. It turned out it was blackberry currant mixed with red wine. It was delicious. After that we returned to the RV to have our dinner, and call home.

This black swan was out looking for dinner outside the RV.

April 16, 2018 Rivieres FR

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.

April 25, 2018 Chateau Neuf du Pape FR

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. Rousillon 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 Rousillon 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 arguments 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.

June 22, 2019 Epernay FR

We picked Epernay as a destination as it was about 60% of the way to Sens, had a decent place to stay, and looked like an interesting place to spend the afternoon. When we arrived we were worried about whether there would be room in the campground as there was a youth Rugby tournament taking place at the athletic fields surrounding the campgrounds. Actually we have begun to notice that things are getting more crowded as we go, the aires and campgrounds have been filling up nearly everyday by 5 pm. We got lucky and did get a spot, but by 5 pm they were also full.

There were about 30 youth rugby teams in the tournament taking place at the campground.

We spent the afternoon relaxing and when we were bored venturing out to watch the youth Rugby. Ton and I took a walk around 1pm, but in France even youth Rugby tournaments take a two hour break for a proper lunch. We enjoyed watching the families lay out a large lunch spread including wine for the adults. The French surely have their priorities aligned when it comes to food.

Lunch being prepared at the Rugby Tournament.

Epernay is one of the largest producers of champagne, and Moet which is an upscale brand is based there. Our original plan was to walk into town and poke around, but it was quite hot. When we checked in they told us there was a wine tour at 5:15 pm for a reasonable price, so we signed up to avoid the walk. On the tour we were joined by a German couple with a cute Labradoodle named Murphy, and a couple of Dutch guys who were on a weekend trip to stock up with champagne for the year. The winery was kind of a bust as the owner did not speak much English, and none of us spoke French. But we made the best of it and ended up enjoying the company of the other people on the tour.

A demonstration of the capping process at our champagne cellar tour.

When we returned Ton made a huge dinner as we are trying hard to eat all of the food in the refrigerator. Feeling stuffed we decided to take an after dinner stroll when we ran into the Dutch guys again. As we were exchanging stories Ton told them about the Dutch couple we were parked next to in Bruges, he had told us that he was one of the original surfers in the Netherlands. When she was explaining the part about the surfer dude from Holland the two guys started speaking excitedly in Dutch, and asked her to describe him in more detail. They had a little more conversation in Dutch and then told us we had met Jan van de Berg who apparently is more than just a surfer dude in the Netherlands, but a big deal. He was an Olympic hero in the 80’s for winning the Netherlands first medal in surfing, also he was apparently a hotty as all of the girls in the Netherlands had posters of him in their bedrooms. Our street cred with the Dutch guys went up enormously. Later Ton did some research and we think we met the parents of Jan, and not Jan himself.

May 2, 2019 Les Riceys FR

We are still a bit jet lagged so we find we are falling asleep late and then sleeping in. This morning we were not up until 9am. The plan for the day was to return to the little village we stopped in yesterday.

Les Riceys is actually a combination of three villages that were at one point the border fortresses for 3 different principalities. In the distant past before France was a country there was a Riceys in the Duchy of Sens, another in the Duchy of Burgundy, and a third in Champagne. Each of the Riceys have their own fortified church. They are now happily together as Les Riceys.

The wine in the area is Champagne, though it has only been allowed to be called Champagne recently due to the strict French rules about these things. It was restricted because some of the vineyards are in Burgundy, so it was not purely from Champagne. Now they are allowed to call it champagne as the village mostly resides in Champagne.

An interesting store front in Les Riceys.

Today we stopped at two wineries. At the first winery Pascal Walczak the owner welcomed us with open arms, but he did not speak English. Luckily for us there were two other visitors from Luxembourg who took us under their wing and translated for us. We learned a lot about Champagne. We were also able to get some tips about places to go in Luxembourg and Germany from our impromptu translators. It was a nice stop.

The weather called for hard rain in the afternoon so we rushed over to the Tourist Information to try to find another place to visit before the rain set in. The office recommended a place called Morize Pere & Fils. She called ahead and said that they were beginning a tour shortly and we needed to head straight over. When we go there it was a tour in French, with no helpful Luxembourgers along to help with the translation. The tour guide was one of the sons, though he was our age. The tasting was also nice, and the champagne was good. The problem is neither Ton or I are big fans of champagne, and while we recognized it was good wine, it still was not to our taste.

The sign board for the winery Champagne Morize Per and Fils.

Rose de Riceys, a very interesting wine unique to the area.

Les Riceys is a nice little village with a well kept feel, and a lot of wineries specializing in Champagne. If you are a fan we highly recommend you try it. Right after the second tour the hard rain arrived, so we hunkered down in François for the remainder of the day.

April 9, 2018 Dijon FR

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.

April 7, 2018 Vincelles FR

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.