The reason we only have three days in Burgundy is this: Alsace is too far to drive to in one day from Loire: 7+ hours. And I just cannot spend more than 5 hours in the car with the kids… Three days is nowhere near enough to see the region of Burgundy. But I guess I knew that, when I planned only three days in Burgundy to be sort of a “stop-over” between Loire and Alsace?

Anyway, we are staying at a gîte about 10 minutes from Beaune, the wine capital of Burgundy (Dijon is its actual capital). Beaune is located in between Lyon and Dijon which are both bigger cities.

Burgundy seems to be all about wine. To me, it feels like it’s much more wine-oriented than other regions. Other regions produce wine, too, and it is good (as much as my extremely unrefined palate could judge), but Burgundy, oh my gosh… On every side of the road are grape wines. The vineyards and wine tasting sites are everywhere. Supermarkets such as Intermarché have a special section called “cave” – perhaps it’s related to Spanish word “cava” which means “sparkling wine”? Or may be it’s related to the word “cave”, as in “wine cellar/wine cave”? Bourgogn-eans seem to have a very strong sense of identity. The region has a bright, signature pattern, that can be noticed on the roofs of many buildings.

Because we only had three days, we stayed in the area where our gîte was- Beaune. The

definite highlight was a visit to Les Hospices de Beaune – a hospital and a hospice in Beaune, the heart of Burgundy, dating to 1440! The visit was fascinating. Visitors could look at the exact set-up of the hospital: the rich section, the poor section, the pharmacy, the distillery, the apothecary, the kitchen, the equipment, and, the medical tools. The surgical tools from prior centuries were intense. The hospital also had a vineyard on site since they believed in healing properties of wine.

Interestingly, the place functioned as hospital and a hospice. It was entirely self-sufficient with a garden and a vineyard. They did purchase meat from neighboring farms, but had their own kitchen.

The second highlight was Avery informative visit to the Burgundy wine and climats museum: the Cité de Climats et Vins.

At first I did not understand what a climat is. Turns out, Burgundy wine country is subdivided into these parcels of land, dating to the Middle Ages, each with different soil, water and sun combinations. Some are set high in the mountains, others are lower in the valley. The location, the type of soil, the availability of sun hours and water sources produces different wines from each climat, or section. So fascinating.

The museum was small but informative. As I mentioned before I like wine but I am no connoisseur. It was nice to go deeper into wine production, and how often it is a true labor of love for the wine makers.

My favorite section was a row of about twenty bulbous vases with items in them to show a variety of scents that wine can carry. In other words, you place your nose into an opening of a vase and take a good whiff. I smelled leather, wood, vanilla, berries, flowers, licorice, even fermentation-milk products. Each vase had a table underneath to explain which types of wines carry certain smells.

After the museum we went to lunch to a pizza place! I had a margarita pizza, the kids had kids’ special. Their pizzas were shaped as a heart (for L) and a bear (for R). So cute.

Overall, we liked Beaune. We only ate out once since after the museums the kids wanted to go home and rest. I can’t blame them.

Meals I made in Burgundy: very easy. Salads with tomatoes,cucumbers, scallions. Noodle soups out of a can, with a side of baguette. Pasta with sauce. Breakfast was hard boiled eggs, cereal, yogurt, cheese and bread.

The owners of our gîte gave us some apples and explained how to make *insert a French word* , or, in my mind, apple sauce.We didn’t have anything going on tonight so we made apple sauce with apples from the orchard right outside our kitchen window.

Tomorrow we are heading to Alsace where we will stay for 5 nights.

Thank you to all who is following along!