Day 20 - Switzerland to Beaune, France

Breakfast in the hotel, as always, and then at 8:15, off to Burgundy area of France, a very pretty drive. Had lunch at a mall (we had pizza again, even though I said we wouldn’t eat pizza again after Italy), but only had one hour total, so no time for shopping. L

Driving through the countryside, we saw that there are lots of cows in this region, mostly Charolais.

Arrived at Beaune about 2:30 and checked into the Ramparts Hotel. Beaune is a medieval town that is really pretty and it‘s all about wine-making. There are vineyards all around. Yet another town that looks like a movie set. The Chevrolet family is from Beaune, as are Victor Hugo and Louis Pasteur. Walked around town and noticed that the shops were really expensive. The clearance rack at a shoe store had all shoes 79 euros, which is about $120. We did buy a few pastries to hold us over til dinner.

We toured an old hospital that was founded in 1443, to take care of the poor. It was used as a hospice in the days of the black plague.

After touring the hospice, some of us took the little tourist train that drives you all through the town and out into the vineyards. Then, we toured a wine-making place, went down into the cellar and most of the people did wine-tasting.

Had dinner that night all together - we started off the meal with escargot! Gary and I actually ate them! They tasted fine, but just knowing that we were eating snails was kind of weird! They were cooked in kind of a garlicky-buttery sauce, like scampi, so we used that to dip our bread in and that was the best part of that whole escargot experience. Then we had a first course of ham (they call it jambon) with some type of gelatin. I ate a little bit of the ham. Then, we had boeuf burgenon (I know that is not spelled properly, but you know what I’m talking about) and noodles. That was tasty. Then, they brought out three kinds of cheese, which I wasn’t interested in and for dessert, some type of pears marinated in something wine-related and some sorbet. I ate the sorbet, but didn’t really care for the pears.

This picture to the left is Gary eating a snail.



Headed back to the hotel and turned in for the night, leaving for Paris in the morning.