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| Auxerre |
We’re getting behind in our stories and indeed things seem to be moving so fast now that our minds can scarcely keep pace with our journeying. Travelling on the road brings far more before our eyes than puttering along on barge.
We farewelled Paul and Jonquil in Joigny and headed to Auxerre. Had the Nivernais been open we would have seen Auxerre by boat and ended in Corbigny. As it was, we ended (where we began) further north. Driving down to Dijon via Auxerre seemed a good idea.
We re-connected with Stewart and Judy who are spending their last few days there. Their unit is up in an ancient stone tower – tastefully re-decorated by architects so one doesn’t have to enjoy all the fun of the 1400’s. The place is so awesome that the little brass “tourist-walk” arrows through town go up their tower stairs and into their bathroom (I’m not even exaggerating).
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| Re-connecting in Auxerre |
Beautiful cathedral, markets in the sun by the canal (wine faecal sausage with onions and raclette – mmmm). It’s a tourist market; swiss cheese, German and swiss sausage, chablis beers, raclette and, ironically, a cool Ikea-like fold out ironing board (not sure he’s got his demographic right but to be fair, he’ll probably pull more sales than the faecal sausage man).
Drove to Dijon on the motorway 130km, beautiful road. Delightful rolling green countryside with little stone villages and the occasional castle way up on a hill. The sky is cut by a storm front like the bow of a massive grey steel battleship and suddenly we’re driving through a patchwork of sun one moment and dark shadow and rain the next. There are great flashes of lightening and the traffic slows to 110.
Our accommodation in Dijon is a lovely old Hostelry with a carriage-way into a stone inn with high ceiling old rooms you could imagine someone out of pride and prejudice staying in (Elizabeth’s family not Darcy). The stables are garages. Di writes some letters, I go out for a stroll. Some of lasts night’s flow of French instructions from the lovely lady and her dog at reception may have slipped past the radar. The most important slip, perhaps, was the after hours, night access code, and I found myself admiring the wrong side of a lovely 1600’s, locked, spear topped, wrought iron gate.
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| Our coach house in Dijon |
Fortunately, there were two poms having late night drink down in the carriageway and after a few calls, (the first, they told me, they ignored, hoping the drunk would go away) I was in and avoiding an ethnographic study of Dijon night street life.
Lovely day in Dijon; antique shop, church, restaurant, lots of happy touring people, train strike march, lovely flag-stone square etc etc. Drove to Besancon where the massive 1800 stone battlements (Vauban), look down over the old town. The town is in a loop of the river and a rock promontory rises up steeply where the river comes back to meet itself. Here the battlements sit in a place identified by Julius Ceasar as of strategic significance.
We just miss a thunderstorm getting to our room in Besancon (best room ever – massive ceilings, giant timber beams, lovely old furniture etc.) and the thunder booms down the stone streets and rattles the windows. We check out the battlements in the morning then head for the Grottes (caves) that have been visited by tourists for 500 years.
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| From our window in Besacon after the storm |
An hours drive from the caves to Ornan, through the beautiful Franche Comte; sandstone cliffs, deep green forests, tiny winding roads. One mountain road is so thin us and the truck have to stop and kind of shimmy our vehicles past each other. We pass a most magnificent chateau by a river in a little town called Cleron. Then arrive in Ornan (birthplace of the French artist Gaustaves Colbert) and pull in to the aptly named Gaustave’s table.
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| Chateau at Cleron |
Tomorrow…..not sure yet, south towards the Jura