Cycling through the vineyards

Wednesday 23rd  September

One of  the best ways to truly appreciate the enormity of the vineyards around Beaune is to cycle through the middle of them.

After purchasing the necessary baguettes filled with camembert,  salmon or chicken, we collected our two bikes from the cycle rental shop and set off for the unknown.  Well actually our final destination was the train station at Chagny, a mere 30 km away.

I had an electric bike - or e-bike to  those in the know. Due to my sore leg, the distance, my age, my lack of fitness. .. and probably a lot of other excuses,  an e-bike seemed a safer bet for me. I have to admit that it was probably one of the flatter bike rides I have ever done as it was really a long Valley. I think I would have survived with a normal bike but better to be safe than sorry.

You can see in the photos the extent of the vineyards, miles and miles and miles of them, with no other crops at all.  The continuous green was punctuated by small stone workers huts and the occasional small village,  usually with a nice square, fountain and chalet. For the last part we rode along the canals and admired the barges. 

After all of that exertion we had some quiet time, which was just what we needed, to 'gird our loins' to face a very noisy dinner with some very talkative  Canadians.  Graeme met Linda and John when he was endeavoring to find the perfect place to buy in France, and since then they have become from friends.  They were joined by 6 of their Canadian friends. ...and boy!  Can they talk!  And how active and adventurous they are!  I was the baby of the group, the oldest being 82. They are up for anything so we had a riotous dinner discussing everything from prime ministers to migration to travel disasters to. .....well you name it,  we discussed it! They were a lot of fun.

Still giggling we took ourselves home to bed,

Your happy and healthy correspondent,

Dianne

PS Quirky fact no. 2: When we arrived in Beaune there seemed to be a lot of signs advertising caves.  Terrific I thought, as I love a good cave.  But these caves are actually wine cellars and almost every house in Beaune seems to have one. Many of them are so large that they house entire restaurants and hundreds of bottles of wine. No stalactites or stalagmites to be seen!