Menetou Salon - Hunt for Wine

Out of Burgundy and into the Loire Valley
A few years ago in Paris I had dinner at a restaurant in the 11th with colleagues.  The wine was really delicious and inexpensive and I took a picture of it thinking I would pick up a few bottles.  I looked everywhere for it in vain.  When planning the Burgundy trip I noted that the small village of Menetou-Salon was not that far away from our last stop of Vézelay.  We dialed it into the GPS and off we went.

Vézelay - Hilltop Town

The Natural Beauty Continues
On reflection I think I prefer the French countryside to the grit of Paris.  No doubt I am a city person but that feeling is not as strong as it used to be.  Vézelay is a small village with a large church perched along a narrow spine of hill in central Burgundy.  We stayed in a tiny hotel with a tinier veranda and a larger than life view of the surrounding countryside.

Chateauneuf - Unplanned Side Trip

The Expected Unexpected
We usually plan a loose itinerary so we can get sidetracked.  As we zipped along the A6 on our way from Beaune to Vezelay we saw a castle at the top of the hill and had the same thought - "let's go check it out." We never would have made it without GPS, which took us on a large counterclockwise loop through some lavender fields.

Beaune - Wine Capital of Burgundy

Market Behind the Walls
Beaune is a small town thirty minutes drive from Puligny-Montrachet that sits behind medieval walls and a moat.  It's the epicenter of the Burgundy wine trade, just about all businesses here relate to it in one form or another.  We lucked into a thriving food market and bought a block of cheese, mustard, some strawberries and a bottle of wine.

Puligny-Montrachet - Wine Epicenter

How Do You Know You're in Wine Country?
Well, for one, you're surrounded by vines.  Everywhere you look - along the road, in backyards, on the hills.  We arrived at the village of Puligny-Montrachet in mid-afternoon and took a walk along a small winding road to peek at the vines.  Strange tractors puttered by us - four small wheels and then five feet of suspension up to the enclosed drivers cab.  We later saw one crawling through a vineyard - it looked like a spider on wheels.

Auxerre - First Stop in Bourgogne

Medieval Lunch
Auxerre dates back to Roman times when it was a provincial capital of the Empire.  Since then it has seen its share of history: the 100 years war, the Wars or Religion, its capture by the Huguenots, Nazis and the most bizarre of all - the drunken wolves.  During WWII a pack of starving wolves ate grapes off the vines and became drunk.  They lay down in the city center where the townsfolk took advantage with swords and knives.

France - Next Up, Road Trip

Burgundy & the Loire Valley
When I booked the rental car I did it on a French website so I wasn't completely sure what I was doing.  It got even worse when we arrived to pick up the car - nobody there spoke good English.  So, as the clerk chattered away at me in French and I signed each piece of paper I knew something was going to go wrong.  When we got in our car, I noticed it was a standard, not an automatic.  It took a few days to adjust.  Good thing it came with GPS or we never would've made it.  We were headed to Bourgougne otherwise known as Burgundy with a short jaunt into the Loire Valley.