Mercure Beaune Centre

Yes it is true. We worked our way up to Beaune, and just like in the Rhone, have not been dissapointed at all. We explored the tiny towns of Pommard, Volnay, Mersault, and Satenay, and got to try some amazing wine from all places. We even tried a place in Pommard and then headed over to his son's winery in Mersault (the son's was actually better than his Dad's stuff!) The only word of caution if you come wine tasting ...

After Angela spent the weekend with my mom, Linda, and I in London her mom was nice enough to extend an invitation to me to go to wine country with them for a weekend trip. Beaune was our destination, located in the burgundy wine region of France. In France will not see wine labeled by the type of grapes used (i.e. Merlot, Cabernet, etc.) instead they are labeled by region (i.e. Bordeaux, Bourgogne, etc.). Angela's mom and her cousin Tracy had already been in and around ...

... platform until 15 minutes before and my train was very long, it took almost five minites to get to the last carriage. It was the secnd TGV train I have been on (the first was from Luxembourg to Paris. They are the fastest trains in the world. I have been told that the most recent trial had the train travelling faster than a plane (however the rails couldn't handle it). <br>From Paris to Dijon it only tok an hour and a half, the Ice trains in Germany would have taken at least ...

... France Passion" of this trip. Barely had we rolled to a halt at the Domaine Michel Guitton when a lady of the establishment was out to meet and greet with the offer of a 'degustation'. We accepted and, once inside, were presented with a list. First was Petit Chablis at 8eu a bottle. Next was Chablis at 10eu followed by three others going over the 30eu mark. We asked to sample the 10eu bottle, duly produced from a cool box. very nice, we said - we'll have ...

... There we met a lovely French/Hungarian family (Attila makes a point of talking to everyone he hears speaking Hungarian... except in Hungary, of course). The gentleman was from France and spoke English so he helped by clarifying what the extremely-fast-speaking tour guide was showing us.<br><br>After leaving the castle we finished our drive through the vinyards of Burgundy and headed back to Beaune for dinner.<br>

... slipped behind the wheel caressing the gearstick lovingly and cooing words of enouragement<br>to the little pooper. With a softness usually only reserved for these special moments in the <br>shower, he took hold of the gearstick engaged first and proceeded to kick the ***** out of<br>four gears with the cry of Corporal Jones "They don't like it up'em". With a strong tail <br>wind, three bodies lent forward, and on a down slope the old girl knockered out ...

The journey from Dunkirk went well. Soon we were on the A25 to Lille and soon enough after on the A26 to Reims; the miles smoothed away. We stopped occasionally at services - which the French do better than anyone else - and came off the motorway for a short while at Chalons en Champagne to fill up more cheaply. This little excursion was made especially interesting by a brief attempt on my part to drive on the left - it ...

Ok, I finally have time to go back and write this as if I'm sitting in Beaune...whereas in fact I am in Padova, as always.   "This weekend" I "am going" to France.  So I went to Grenoble on Thursday, and after a longgg train ride, I arrived in Grenoble, where my friend Alex is studying.  Oh but a bit about the train ride -- Milan, as always, was a complete dump, and the greatest train station misery of my life.  The ...

... museum was sort of a bust as far as education goes, so we decided to go for the real thing. We signed up for a wine tasting for dummies type of course, and had a picnic lunch in the park. There were four people at the tasting (including us) with a sommelier giving the hour long course. She had an AV with good slides of regional maps, classification systems, and catch words for describing the aroma and tastes of wines. She was, however, a bit of a wine snob and did more asking ...

... getting pretty toasty on that excursion and now I wasn't really sure how to pace myself over the course of the day. So, I decided that expectoration was the proper strategy; at least early on. Now, if you haven't much practice spitting out mouthfuls of wine into the pretty receptacles which are invariably provided expressly for this purpose, it can be, how shall we say?, a bit off-putting. Not that it's any more difficult than tying one's shoes or blowing bubbles with chewing gum ...