Vineyards and villages

Friday 20^th June

We have continued to head north and west towards Paris. Today our destination was the little village of Chardonnay where we had booked a B&B. As the morning progressed we moved out of the serious mountains and into more hilly areas of France. The roads again were excellent and not too much traffic. The scenery was different but still beautiful. I don’t think I have mentioned the red poppies before – in the early weeks in France we saw very few, but through Italy they were growing wild everywhere and now we are out of the mountains in France we are seeing them on the roadside again.

Our first stop was the town of Bourg-en-Bresse where we had lunch and a bit of a look around. It is wonderful to see the old buildings in the town – built without a spirit level I am sure. We didn’t do anything special here.

 

The cathedral at Bourg-en-Bresse had
some beautiful stained glass windows.

Crooked as a dogs hind leg but real character.

Dog of the day - Milly, we found your sister.

The clocktower in Bourg-en-Bresse.

More crooked buildings - but they have stood the test of time.

From Bourg-en-Bresse we continued towards Chardonnay. Finding we were going to be too early to check-in we took a detour through the wine growing area near Macon and looked at some of the old chateaux. This was a beautiful drive through the vineyards and forests and no traffic. We had another stop in the town of Cluny for a coffee and looked at the old cathedral there. From the outside the cathedral is pretty dark and gloomy but is surprisingly light inside. There is also an ancient abbey in the town but we didn’t have enough time to visit there.

 

An interesting sculpture on a roundabout we passed. 

One of the chateaux we passed on our tour of the wine country.

A fairly outstanding rock outcrop along the way.

Another of the chateaux.

The old church in Cluny.

Our B&B is in a tiny town with nothing else there so thankfully they did dinner. It is owned by an English couple and Nic is the chef. We enjoyed a very nice dinner there and had a lovely evening.

 

Our B&B in the town of Chardonnay.

Saturday 21^st June

Dogs of the day - the 2 golden retrievers at the B&B.

North west again and today’s destination is the town of Auxerre. More lovely roads and driving through the country with almost no traffic. Our first surprise for the day was only 30 minutes after setting out when we found the medieval village of Brancion. This truly is a medieval village and if you put people there in costume and the odd horse and cart, you’d swear we were back in the 1600s. It was a lovely walk around the village and the church seemed to be in almost original condition with the marble slabs on the floor where people were buried. I think they are slowly working on bringing the village up to ‘tourist’ standard though I’d hate to see it too commercialised. They have a program there where they are using prisoners close to release to work in the town doing restoration.  

A few photos of the medieval town of Brancion.

They are working on restoring the frescoes uncovered in the church.

The church in Brancion.

The castle at Brancion.

Following this we then stopped at the town of Autun for lunch and this town was also a surprise. We had seen nothing in any tour brochures about it but the town has quite a few sites to visit. We didn’t give the town the time we wished we could but we did visit the Cathedral, the roman amphitheatre, the roman walls, including the towers, which are still complete around most of the town, one of the old town gates, the town square, the military secondary school which was originally built in the 1600s as a seminary college, and the church and school where the Bonaparte kids went to school (Napolean for 4 months). For not spending much time there, we sure covered a bit of its history.

Another chateau along the way.

The church and school in Autun
where the Bonaparte children attended.

The military high school in Autun. Look at the tiles on the roof.
I think it was a graduation day, or family visiting day
 because there were a lot of kids in uniform
eating out with their families.

The old roman amphitheatre at Autun.

The cathedral spire in Autun.

One of the corner towers in the roman walls at Autun.

The roman walls at Autun.,
Hard to believe they are in such good condition considering the age.

 

One of the original roman town gates.

We hit the road again because it was still a fair distance to Auxerre. We did stop for afternoon tea in the town of Avallon where we found the tea rooms frequented by the over 70s in Avalon. A very nice afternoon tea so I can see why they go there.

The clocktower in Avallon.

Tonight we are staying with our old favourites, Premiere Classe. Just next to the hotel is a Chinese buffet restaurant so we had dinner there where we got our vegetables for the week. It was a really nice meal – as well as the usual entrees and dishes, you can fill a plate with raw ingredients and have them cook it with the sauce of your choice. We both had 2 dishes cooked for us and they were excellent.