Balladins Confort Hotel Chalon Sur Saone Chalon-sur-Saone

... is that everything closes for lunch from 12 to 2. They are serious on their lunchtime here, and when its raining and there's not much sightseeing to do in the small towns, well, lets just say we were lucky to have enough wine to get us through it. We also tried a proper french dinner in the town of Beaune, a 4 course meal for 12 Euros. Caity got Rabbit and Tom got Veal, or so we thought. We still aren't sure ...

... just an hour before. We found a place on the square that was pretty cheap and dived in. After lunch we walked in and out of a few wine shops. Soon we found ourselves in a wine tasting cave/shop. It was only 10 euro and you got a wine tasting cup and got to taste 15 different wines!! Whoohoo! We spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon there putting the skills we had learned that morning to use. There was nobody really monitoring our intake but in order to get ...

... within. It's hard for me not to imagine that the candles are symbolic of all of the lights within all of us at Taize and beyond. We each have a light within and we lean, round shouldered on one another.
Challenges
Although I love the worship three times a day - the amazing singing (the harmonies!) and the time of silence, I must admit that monastic life may not be for me ...

... so we rode in. Pastis and a (small) glass of rose for 2.20eu. Bit of a difference to Troyes where we were charged 8.10eu for a beer and a cold cafe au lait.
The site is fre but requires tokens for electricity (3eu for 1 hour) and water (3eu for 100 litres).This is pricey by French standards (the usual charge for 100ltrs of water - where not free - being no more than 1eu) but not too bad for such an attractive site.
One novelty spotted - a large BMW ...

... kitchen and pharmacy, all run by nuns.

After touring the hospice, we did a little shopping (OK, I did a little shopping and Attila did a little waiting). In trying to pay for my purchase, I discovered a compatibilty probelm with the chip in my Visa. Apparently France hasbeen using the chip for quite some time and some of the readers are not compatible with our new chips in North America. Anyway, it ...

... easy enough to get this right on the motorways, ********* junctions of smaller roads! But the mistake lasted only a few seconds and the surprised French driver who alerted us to the mistake was really nice about it, slowing down gently as I eased (well, lurched) to the right side of the road, and not even offering a corrective beep - very polite indeed in the circumstances.

The last stretch of our day's journey ...

Booked a site off the A6 en route to the south of france - again we are the youngest by about 20 years and Lauren is practically embryonic!The site is opp. some sort of manufacturing base but hey the pool is across the river and the wine is great in this region... Talking of pools - Stu was stopped in his tracks and asked to disrobe of his board shorts and don a very tight fitting pair of trunks ...

... Australia?" he repeated. "That's very far. Would you give a talk about Australia tomorrow? 2 minutes? And perhaps you could sing a song from Australia." ""A song?!" ""Great, 2 minutes," he said again, and off he went to another group. "Umm....ok... But with all that was going on at Taizé, I didn't have much spare time to prepare anything. ...To be continued when I have more time to write in my blog...

... veini degusteerimiseks. Selle poolest tõesti, et ig*s poes meelit*v*d sildid sinn* t*sut* veini degusteerim*. Esm*lt kül*st*sime *g* hoopis M*rché *ux Vins nimelist koht*, kus *nti sissepääsu juures pisike met*llist nõu j* sooviti he*d degusteerimist. Ed*si läksime keldrisse, kus oli võim*lik proovid* 18 erinev*t veini! Aus*lt öeldes pettusime seni kiidusõnu kuulnud Burgundi* veinides, sest need tundusid kuid*gi hoopis m*itsetum*d kui teiste piirkond*de suumärjukesed. Muidu ...

... have a microwave in our apartment in Leiden), a TV with one English chanel (CNN), and finally, the very best part of all, BUNK BEDS!!! YES! We actually discoverred that the couch pulled out into a double bed, so we used this instead, but we were entertained with the idea of sleeping in bunk beds for a short period of time. The hotel was a little smokey, there was no room service, and the staff were extremely UNhelpful, but for $25 a night we were thrilled! The following ...