Burgundy
Hi again!
We've only been in Paris for a week, but we've already had our first excursion to the wonderful region of Burgundy (which is truly more fun to say in French: booor-GOYN-yuh). We took the speedy TGV to some random spot in the country where we drove out by bus to the town of Beaune. There, we saw the hospices of Beaune, a 15th century hospital where you have to cure the soul before you cure the body. They were really picky back then. The outside of the "Hotel Dieu," as it was called, was gray and somber, but a walk inside revealed a beautiful inner courtyard where you could see all of the rooftops glistening with bright and motley-colored shingles. We grabbed lunch and a coffee, then walked to our next desination: the largest wine cellars in Burgundy!
At the Patriarche wine cellars, we navigated dimly lit stone passages amongst (literally) four million bottles of wine. While we were sure monsters hid in every dark nook, the only thing we found was the somewhat uptight wine expert at the end of the path who administered the wine tasting. I haven't much experience with that kind of thing... the "comments" section of my wine card boasts such stunning insights as "I like" and "I don't like" and even "it's good!"
We drunkenly (apparently it's cool to drink the wine at French wine tastings) boarded our bus which brought us to the chateaus (also much cooler in French because the plural is CHATEAUX) where we would stay. All the boys got to stay at "La Tour" which was a little more dirty and old. However, it was where we ate our dinners and watched folkloric dancing on the first night, so I can't complain. For the dinners, we all sat in a great hall with a large U shaped table. The proprietors of the chateau kept bringing out wine bottles before we could finish what was on the table.
The next two days involved seeing a few differents styled churches in Tournus and Cluny. My descriptions might be accurate and representative of our guide's presentation, but it would mind-numbingly boring without being there.
I've got much more to say about Paris, and I had my first class yesterday, but I will save that for later. For now, I've got more pictures, and I've started an index page from where you can see all of my photos.
Photos en France for the index and Volume V for Burgundy.
--Chris