Burgundy -- how many days & where to visit? To Barge or not to Barge?

Beaune is a great place to be based! Ideally right in the heart of this beautiful town.

You can organise wonderful wine tasting tours with the tourist office and jump a train to Dijon in about 20 mins or down to Chagny in ten mins. Chagny has a fantastic weekend market! A must see! Another place worthy of mention is The 'Maison de Olivier Leflaive' in Pulligny Montrachet. They host fabulous wine tastings visits and lunch. Just don't take a car!

Barge cruising is a uniquely awesome experience and we travelled on the beautiful 1922 Barge 'Nilaya' in Burgundy and the Loire a couple of years ago. It's offers an incredibly informal experience hosting just four guests. The owners are a lovely couple, so full of knowledge about France, the French and the waterways. Isabelle's home cooked French cuisine is outstanding and being aboard was a bit like enjoying a private tour! Not as expensive or as formal as the big hotel barges either. We found Nilaya through Rick Steves as its been listed in their France guide book for about 6 or so years to my knowledge. They get a lot of Rick Steves guests and for a very valid reason! They're good!

Nilaya cruises many different parts of France and we are hoping to join them for one of their Lorraine, Ardennes or Alsace legs later this summer. France as seen from the deck of a barge, takes some beating! I hope that this is of some help.

We stayed in this apartment in the center of Beaune for a week and loved it. I think the owner has a few others as well. We're not big wine people but Beaune has a lot of tasting rooms so you can sample the products without having to drive to the vineyards, and, more to the point, back after tasting. The vineyards themselves are a treat though.

For your second base, you might want to put yourself a bit north to be closer to great sites like Fontenay and Vezelay and Alesia, not for wine so much as for history and architecture, but I can't recommend a specific town or place.

Edit -- I don't think there are any half-day or one-day barge cruises in Burgundy, only those where you ride for several days. It's too bad, we were looking for similar when we visited but couldn't find it. All I can suggest is Google.

My wife and I biked from Dijon to Beaune last September, visiting wineries along the way. Beaune has much to offer, such as the Hospice and a fantastic light show. We stayed at Le Cep inside the ramparts and would recommend it highly. Dijon is not as wine-centric, but worth visiting. We stayed at La Cloche; also top notch.
We biked along the canal near Dijon. We saw many barges, but not sure if they were hourly excursions. If you are able, I suggest renting bikes in Beaune and biking the Veloroute, which connects many of the Burgundy villages (Nuits St. George, Aloxe-Corton, Vosne-Romanee, Pommard) on a bike only lane through the vineyards. Plenty of opportunities to taste.

Instead of half a day on a barge, maybe half a day on bikes along the tow path? Just as heavenly, and you don't have to stand in line to get through the locks.

We have stayed in Beaune but prefer a smaller town as a base. The last time we stayed in Burgundy we spent a week in a cottage below the walls of Semur en Auxois and loved it. It was convenient for driving to many interesting towns, abbeys etc. You can see some of that trip including the town here:
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/category/burgundy/
One one day we got out the Michelin Guide and did a series of small hikes; we just set our GPS for the town on the map with a hiking trail and went from trailhead to trailhead taking lovely little strolls of a km or two to the source of a river, to waterfalls, along a picturesque gorge etc.

On previous trips we based near Vezelay and visited Auxerre and hiked in the Morvan Forrest. And sometimes we just drive around and follow signs to chateaux and old churches and other heritage sights that are signed along the roads.

Burgundy is stunning country.