Burgundy Doesn't Get Any Better than This!

After spending a day more than we had planned to in Geneva (it was really hard to leave the warmth and hospitality of Pension Resi!) we took a two hour bus ride to Lyon in France. Catching a tram from the station at which we arrived to the more domestic station we picked up our rental car from Europcar – a Toyota Yaris which we came to call Luzy (named after one of the towns we drove through and pronounced Lucy)…we had booked a small Ford Ka but decided to pay a small upgrade fee of two Euro a day more. This is a hint for all car hire through Europcar – book their smallest model and 90% of the time you get a free upgrade since they have almost none of these basic models in stock!

We decided to drive exclusively on the ‘National’ and ‘Regional’ roads in France – avoiding the very expensive Autoways. This turned out to be a great decision – apart from getting a real feel for small-town rural France, and saving a packet on tolls, we worked out that the distances and times travelled weren’t that much longer since there are no autoways that trace the route we wanted to take. The one thing to be ready for is a ton of traffic circles – the French are inordinately proud of having invented the ‘Rond Point’ and their engineers have gone out of their way to prove the point in every small town and village in France. For those of us more used to driving on the left this is something of a challenge at first (just remember – give way to anything coming from the left in the circle…trucks, cars, bicycles, speedy French snails etc!)

The Rural France We had been Searching For!

Now our original plan for Burgundy was to try for accommodation in or around Dijon or Beaune – but we decided to rather try our luck in the Chalon-sur-Saone area of Southern Burgundy instead. I can’t tell you how glad we were that we did. The very helpful tourist office gave us a few leads on rural B&B options (the French call them Gites and they belong to the Gites de France association). Taking a chance with no advance reservation we drove to the tiny village of Buxy, about 21km away. Our first choice was called Pinnacle – a superb guest house situated in the middle of some stunningly beautiful vineyards. Sadly they were full, with a group of Dutch music students in residence. Standing in the courtyard, listening to the strains of classical chamber music and watching the sun setting over the miles of Burgundian grapes we knew we had to find a place nearby. Fortunately the owner of Pinnacle found us a place in the town of Buxy itself – which turned out to be even better.

Brocante de la Graineterie was one of our best accommodation choices on the trip – and made even more special by the warmth and charm of its owner and manageress, Madame Christine Sarazin (see separate review). After a quick visit to the local supermarket to buy some basic supplies (baguette, REALLY potent Dijon mustard, ham, tomatoes etc) we whipped up a true French ‘picnique’ in the back garden of the house.

Wednesday was one of the most memorable of our days thus far. After a quick breakfast at around 9am we prevailed on Christine to arrange for us a private tasting of high quality local wine at an independent cellar in a grand local manor house – Chateau Cary Potet. We drove to the Chateau and met Charles, the winemaker and owner of the estate. A rather brusque older Frenchman he led us down into his cellar and started the tasting. A man of few words he soon warmed up when our questions showed we had more than just a passing interest in and knowledge of good wines. He soon opened some of his best Chardonnays – including the ’04 which we both feel was by far the best. The ’04 Pinot Noir was equally good – and made a very good finish to our first French degustation (wine tasting) – eat your heart out Kimble and Ro!!

After a quick drive back to the guesthouse and a change into more appropriately summery clothes we borrowed two bikes from Christine and set out on the Voie Verte (Green Path) – a superb local attraction. In essence it is an old train track that was decommissioned and turned into an excellent bicycle and pedestrian concrete path linking almost all of the small villages of this region. Meandering through the hills and valleys of the Burgundian countryside it is the closest thing to rural country heaven that either of us have yet found – and it was EXACTLY what we needed. Pleasingly flat the track wanders past pastures with curious cows and sheep, contented donkeys and a variety of birds that defies description. As it passes through the little villages it runs directly outside the tourist office of each, with convenient drinking water and local information. This is a ‘green’ feature that South African Tourism would do well to seriously think about duplicating.

After reaching the next village of Givry we set off on a side-loop of the path into Saint Desert and Rosey where we found yet another great boutique vineyard and stopped for another tasting (love the fact that these are generally all free in France!). Slightly more wobbly we biked back to Buxy by about 16:00, showered, and bought some more supplies for our second picnique – this time with Christine (who brought the wine and some great local Jambon Petissier - ham in parsley jelly) and two other guests. She introduced us all to the joys of white wine mixed with cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) which Denise now loves. Dessert was as many fresh cherries as we could all stuff down from the garden of a neighbouring friend, a retired local police constable.

This was the kind of rural France we had both been looking for, and the experience has made us determined to return.