Tuesday 10.5.2010


Beaune City Tour


Beaune is a prosperous little (30,000) city in the middle of the Burgundy wine region or the Cote d’Or (Hillside of gold). While primarily famous for the wines, the area is also the home of Beef Bourguignon, Montrachet cheese, escargot, mustard, and right now, wild mushrooms and truffles. We generally travel for the cultural experience and think that for the next couple days that will revolve around food.


We have chosen to pass on the hotel-offered breakfast since we know it will be croissants, coffee and juice for 9 euros. Instead John has to search high and low for a patisserie to find breakfast this morning. Actually there is one on every corner, including the one three doors down from our hotel. Here he gets croissants, apple stuffed pastries reminiscent of turnovers, and juice for 11 euros for all three of us.


No one is in any hurry to get moving this morning since it is raining. What a shock! We watch a bit of French TV and can make out that nine terrorists have been arrested in Marseille and Aux-in-Provence, our destination later in the week. We decide that the rain is a better option than terrorist news this morning and go out to explore the city.


We start in Place Madeline just outside of the ring road that circles the old city. Poking our way past dozens of shops it seems that about 80% deal with wine, food or both. It is still fun to look at the different meat configurations, huge wheels of cheese, artsy chocolate creations, barrels of breads and pastries, and menus posted every few feet. We’re keeping our eyes peeled for a dinner place for this evening so we don’t repeat the aimless plodding we encountered last night.


We move back across the old moat and town walls into the medieval city that was founded by monks and dukes in the early years of the last millennium. Wine and cheese have been the source of wealth here for a thousand years and it probably won’t change in the near future. The town squares and main shopping drags are mostly pedestrian oriented with the occasional BMW blasting past your left hip just to keep you honest. The shops in the city continue the theme of food and wine, but now throw in the latest in wearable fashion and coiffures for both homme et femme.


All but the cafes close at 12:00 or 12:30 for two hours so the good shopkeepers can grab a peaceful lunch and perhaps a nap. What a sensible idea. We plug away to the early Cathedral of Notre Dame which was mostly built in the 12th and 13th centuries with a modern stylish addition in the 14th. It is pretty well hidden among a warren of back streets so you have to be looking for it to find it. The inside has some nice early frescoes still looking pretty fresh (raising of Lazarus) and a bunch of tapestries that we can only see through a doorway. It is a manned display which means it is closed for two hours for lunch. There is an opera medley here on the 10th and that would be fun in this huge rock building.


We give in to local tradition and work our way back to the square for our lunch. Most of the restaurants will close at 2:00 when the lunch crowd leaves and they may not open again until 7:00. We find a “fast food” place where we order sandwiches at one counter and a beer at another. Pat and John have different version of ham and cheese while Mary munches a double hot dog served on a baguette.


After 2:30 we hit a few of the shops we missed over the lunch break, go back to Place Madeline to book a restaurant for tonight and find a grocery store to pick up a few supplies. With nothing left to accomplish and 4:00 approaching we decide naps are in order.

We have a 7:30 reservation at L’Auberge Bourguignonne and we encounter communication difficulties as soon as we walk in the door. A woman who speaks no English is getting upset when we can’t properly pronounce our name so she can find it on the reservation sheet. To make things easy when traveling, we always book under the name Taylor—that’s TAY-LORR. When finally someone comes along who speaks a bit of English the issue is resolved and we are seated near a corner in an odd seating arrangement which we try to rearrange. We are immediately upbraided by the same woman who was mad at us earlier who we now find is our server for the evening. Holy Crap.


We get a beer, a cocktail and wine ordered without much fuss, but the menu is going to be a different story. John and Pat are both ordering Beef Bourguignonne which isn’t the problem, but Mary would like an explanation of the fish options which she ain’t going to get in this lifetime. We all have Beef Bourguignonne. Our server continues to bash into John or the fellow seated six inches behind him every time she needs to pass by, but we decide she would much prefer to have the problem rather than the solution. The food and beverages were outstanding, but this remains an experience we wouldn’t repeat.

The rain has stopped and we are in bed with a book (ebooks all around) by 10:00.


Today’s weather: Cloudy with some light rain. Low, 48, high 60.