Typically, when people think of Burgundy, they think of the wine that comes from this region of France. You can close your eyes and a picture rolling hills of vineyards baking in a perpetual sunshine. While this reality of Burgundy may exist on certain days and in certain places, it was not what we experienced on our maiden voyage to Burgundy (or Bourgogne, as the French call it) for our third mini-moon of 2014. For this trip, we again rented a car in Paris so that we could have the flexibility to drive around the country. Without going into too much detail, renting a car in Paris is not the most relaxing way to kick off a weekend. We rented the car trough a service called locationdevoiture.fr, which was a great deal until we discovered they had sub-contracted our rental to a company we had never heard of before. It took a bit of detective work just to find out who had our rental. It also probably bears mentioning for those of you who have not spent a lot of time in Europe that this is a continent of stick-shift drivers. It is not at all common for rental companies to have automatic transmission vehicles in stock, and when they do, you're going to pay an arm and a leg for it. Driving is a great way to see France, but it can be stressful (especially if you're not used to stick shift!) and gas and toll roads are super expensive. But I digress - back to Burgundy. If you take a look at the map on the right above, you can find the town we stayed in for the weekend (Saulieu) at the Hôstellerie de la Tour d'Auxois. The hotel was super cute, and our visit included dinner and a kir on Friday night. For those of you who love a good kir (am I right, Neha?), the cocktail actually comes from this region. We also found a fantastic local café in Saulieu that looked right out of a movie, filled with locals drinking coffee, wine, and beer at all hours of the day. Michael is getting to be quite the coffee drinker these days). Our big outing for the weekend was on Saturday, when we drove around to check out the nearby villages. First on the list was Flavigny-sur-Ozerain for lunch. Flavigny is a member of "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France" - most beautiful villages in France - and is where the movie Chocolat was filmed in 2000, starring Johnny Depp as a brooding gypsy (of course). The town also produces a popular French aniseed candy here, too. All of this added up to seem like a perfect way to kick off our local Burgundy village tour. It turns out we were right, but not in the way we expected. The town was indeed beautiful... but it was deserted. And not in the way that perhaps everyone could be excused for sleeping in late sort of deserted. Buildings were for sale; restaurants were closed; windows were shuttered; paint was pealing from buildings. The Chocolat store front was marked, but empty. We found a few priests and a smattering of tourists, but that was pretty much it. I will say, though, our lunch was fantastic. We ate in a family-owned restaurant called La Grange, which serves only a few dishes every day with food from the local farms. And of course, good wine. Our next destination was the larger town of Beaune, which is a really lovely place to visit. Beaune is at the heart of Burgundy wine country, and is definitely a place I would spend more time in the future. We spent a few hours touring the Hôtel-Dieu, which we both agreed was one of the best museum tours we have ever taken. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Just check out this architecture. Driving through the countryside of Burgundy, you can't help but feel both the beauty of the place. But what was so striking to us was that we passed through so many villages that looked absolutely devoid of human life.
Apparently, this phenomenon is happing all throughout Europe - young people are leaving villages to find work in the bigger cities like Paris. This BBC article published last year tells a similar story, and I have heard likewise from Italian and Spanish colleagues at work - their villages are aging, and slowly dying. What a sad reality for us sentimentalists. But overall, we did have a fantastic - though unexpected - weekend, and I would say we will definitely go back to see what it's like in the summer. And of course, visit all of the vineyards we missed the first time around :) You can see more of our pictures from the weekend here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
|