After a wonderful week in Paris Ilise and I parted ways with mom-in-law Ina, each headed onward for more travel. Ina joined a tour group in Amsterdam while Ilise and I went to the Bourgogne (Burgundy) wine region, specifically the town of Beaune which became our home base for three delightful days.
Ilise and I are wine people (we know a little, collect a bit, love to sip and serve it to friends) and this is definitely wine country, a mecca for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lovers. Everything revolves around the wine and the industries that support it. Perfectly fine with us, although we did try a few non-wine related activities just to prove we could and met with mixed success. More on that during the detailed travelogue after the jump.
Ilise and I are wine people (we know a little, collect a bit, love to sip and serve it to friends) and this is definitely wine country, a mecca for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lovers. Everything revolves around the wine and the industries that support it. Perfectly fine with us, although we did try a few non-wine related activities just to prove we could and met with mixed success. More on that during the detailed travelogue after the jump.
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Before going any further I’ll suggest you take a moment to pour yourself a lovely glass of wine – doesn’t have to be French, but my advice is … drink it if you’ve got it.
Also, please enjoy this Spotify playlist created by Jena Priebe in homage to the French countryside. |
Now that we’ve set the mood, let’s return to the tale of our awesome French adventure, part deux. Click on the pictures to embiggen and read the captions.
Day 1: Took the train from Paris to Dijon, got a rental car and drove to Beaune. Getting around without a car is perfectly do-able but you’ll be dependent on bus/train times and making connections. Having the car made it easy for us to get back to Orly for our flight home without sacrificing too much time in transit. After a few false starts due to highway signage that matched neither Google Maps nor the GPS, we finally arrived in Beaune to find an ancient and historic town that is now the capital of this important wine region, population @ 22,000. It’s a highly walkable walled city encircled by a ring road (ask us how many laps around it took to find the #@!% B&B).
Day 1: Took the train from Paris to Dijon, got a rental car and drove to Beaune. Getting around without a car is perfectly do-able but you’ll be dependent on bus/train times and making connections. Having the car made it easy for us to get back to Orly for our flight home without sacrificing too much time in transit. After a few false starts due to highway signage that matched neither Google Maps nor the GPS, we finally arrived in Beaune to find an ancient and historic town that is now the capital of this important wine region, population @ 22,000. It’s a highly walkable walled city encircled by a ring road (ask us how many laps around it took to find the #@!% B&B).
Worth the search, Les Jardins de LoÏs is a truly lovely B&B with inviting gardens and charming hosts, who also make wine and offer daily tastings for their guests. We walked around town to acclimate ourselves and went on a tour/wine tasting at Maison Joseph Drouhin, meandering through ancient cellars and tunnels beneath the streets of “downtown” Beaune and ending up in a modern tasting room and gift shop. The tour guide’s stories provided a good overview not only of the town’s history but also the region’s winemaking business, and this specific winery. The wine was fine … but in my opinion you should save your Euros, there’s better wine to be had nearby.
We had dinner at a gastro pub called La Maison du Colombier which featured a small, artisanal selection of charcuterie and cheese plus one or two go-withs. Ilise had a fabulous escargot soup with green garlic – vivid for the eyeballs and the tastebuds!
Day 2: Wine tour and tastings in the northern part of Burgundy, the Côte de Nuits … which brings me to the #1 Top Takeaway of the Burgundy Adventure -- Hire a tour guide to take you to the vineyards and tasting rooms. It’ll cost you but it’s worth it:
- Legalities – French police are alert for and strict with drivers under the influence, and the tiny sips from even a few tasting rooms can add up pretty quickly;
- Logistics – Even with a map and GPS some of the vineyards and wineries can be hard to find, and many of the smaller ones require advance reservations which the guide will make for you;
- Local knowledge & wine expertise – A good guide will identify your likes, dislikes and general knowledge of wine, then recommend an itinerary of sites to visit. If you have specific requests, or if you like to plan your own tour, that can usually be accommodated as well.
We had a great experience with Youri Lebault from Bourgogne Gold Tour, a private full-day tour that was both educational and entertaining. Youri is local to the area, university-educated in wine culture, and a recent inductee into Les Chevaliers du Tastevin, an exclusive society of Bourgogne wine enthusiasts. He’s an excellent ambassador for the region and takes his role as educator quite seriously. He frequently pulled off to the side of the road, right up next to the the vines, to show us maps, compare soil samples, and discuss the different plats of land and the impact on the eventual wine. He's prone to pop quizzes – “And why is this wine different than the other wine, Ana?” If I gave an incorrect answer, out came the maps and another lecture. (Psst: you can copy off my paper, the answer is always climat.) Youri saved the best for last – a barrel tasting at Domaine Debray with the winemaker himself, come in fresh from the fields to meet with us. What a treat – both the experience and the wine! We brought home two bottles.
That evening’s activities included a bouef bourgignon dinner, one of the region’s signature dishes, and a slow stroll through town.
Day 3: Visited the Hospices de Beaune, established in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy, as a hospital for the poor not out of any altruistic spirit but as his tangible ticket to heaven. Now a popular museum, there are beautiful examples of 15th century architecture and religious art as well as displays and tableaux about life in those times. The self-guided audio tour is well-done. Recommended.
Next up was Le Moutardarie. Another culinary specialty of this region is Dijon mustard so we thought, cool, let’s take a break from wine for a minute and check out this bi-lingual tour of the active mustard factory + museum + tasting room. Imma give you the bottom line first – Skip the tour and head straight for the gift shop with its large display of flavored mustards to sample.
The tour guide was a native French speaker who narrated the displays with paragraphs of amusing anecdotes in French, then turned to us with a dour 2-sentence translation into English. Also, due to super-strong vinegar fumes wafting from the factory floor we spent most of the tour with stinging eyes and tear-stained faces. We paid money for this opportunity? It was fun to taste a wide range of mustards at the tour's end though – gingerbread flavored mustard was a little too weird for me, but the one with black currant was a nice surprise.
Next up was Le Moutardarie. Another culinary specialty of this region is Dijon mustard so we thought, cool, let’s take a break from wine for a minute and check out this bi-lingual tour of the active mustard factory + museum + tasting room. Imma give you the bottom line first – Skip the tour and head straight for the gift shop with its large display of flavored mustards to sample.
The tour guide was a native French speaker who narrated the displays with paragraphs of amusing anecdotes in French, then turned to us with a dour 2-sentence translation into English. Also, due to super-strong vinegar fumes wafting from the factory floor we spent most of the tour with stinging eyes and tear-stained faces. We paid money for this opportunity? It was fun to taste a wide range of mustards at the tour's end though – gingerbread flavored mustard was a little too weird for me, but the one with black currant was a nice surprise.
We decided to squeeze just a little wine-exploration into the day (when in Rome, er, Bourgogne, right?!) and went to visit Domaine Jean Chartron in the Puligny-Montrachet region. A friend worked there several years ago and recommended we make a stop to taste some divine white wines. Highly recommended. A couple of those came home with us too. Dinner on our final night in France was a splurge at Le Jardin des Remparts, a Michelin-one star restaurant with an amazing triple-decker cheese trolley.
The following day we packed up, drove to Orly, and enjoyed a mostly uneventful flight home until we got to Newark International Airport where heavy storms + only one operational runway caused long delays. (shakes fist at sky -- stinking Newark!) Let me just say that the wine served in the American Airlines Admirals Club is nothing like the good stuff we had so quickly become accustomed to during our 10 days in France. Quel dommage!
Eventually we made it home and quickly fell back into our everyday routines. Work demands came rushing back and that stress-free vacation glow faded away in no time. But every so often we remember to slow down, look at the photos, tell remember-when stories, sip a little wine and savor the memories of our dream vacation in France.
It might be time to start planning ahead for the next big adventure. What’s your dream vacation destination? Tell all in the comments.
Eventually we made it home and quickly fell back into our everyday routines. Work demands came rushing back and that stress-free vacation glow faded away in no time. But every so often we remember to slow down, look at the photos, tell remember-when stories, sip a little wine and savor the memories of our dream vacation in France.
It might be time to start planning ahead for the next big adventure. What’s your dream vacation destination? Tell all in the comments.
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