Looking for places to stop along way between Dordogne region and Beune

Some suggestions might include:

Vichy, an old resort town where the French government set up shop in WWII after discovering Clermont-Ferrand didn't have enough lodging. It has a beautiful park around the spring source and an unusually decorated church (Eglise Saint-Blaise de Vichy ).

Paray le Monial, a small medieval town where thousands of pilgrims visit each summer, and which was the site where a nun (Sainte Marguerite-Marie) saw repeated visions of Jesus with his heart exposed in the 1600s -- among the events that led to the devotion of the Sacred Heart. It has several churches and chapels, including the >1,000 year-old Romanesque Basilique du Sacré Coeur, the Chapelle des Apparitions (which is my favorite name of all time for a chapel), and the ornate little Chapelle la Columbiere with its beautiful mosaics.

Cluny, which once contained a huge Benedictine abbey (mostly destroyed during the religious wars) and was the seat of a large network of Benedictine monasteries (such as the one remaining in Paray le Monial). It's impressive how large this facility was -- if you look for it on this website, Rick Steves had some footage of it in his Burgundy: Profoundly French video (starting at around 14:10)

The Roche de Solutré (rock of Solutré), which is an erosional remnant that has been a draw for humans since Neanderthal times. Bones and stone tools that look remarkably like those used by Native Americans for millennia prior to the European conquest of North America have been found at the site and some are on display in a nice little museum at the foot of the rock, which is located in a beautiful small valley, the slopes of which are covered in vineyards. It's in the heart of the Pouilly-fuissé AOC. Former President François Mitterand made it his habit to climb Soluté (nearly) annually during the 1980s to the mid-1990s.

Château de la Rochepot, a castle just southwest of Beaune that is worth a couple of hours if you can spare the time. Originally built in the 12th century, it was destroyed during the French Revolution but rebuilt in the late 19th and early 20th century as identically as possible to the original, using archaeological excavations and the original plans as a guide.

Except for Vichy, these are all in Bourgogne.

If you leave at 9 you will arrive right around check in time. I would just do the 5.5 hour drive with breaks at rest stops.

Thanks for the insights! We will definitely do the drive.

If you are looking for an earlier stop and you like Romanesque churches, try Orcival before you get to Clermont-Ferrand. It's a bit off the highway. Try some good cheese from Auvergne while you are there -- St. Nectaire is my favorite. Auvergne is very beautiful.

There is no way this is a 5-1/2 hour drive. Unless you drive at night and don't stop to eat. But you can certainly do it in a day.

If you want to break your trip, Lyon might make a worthy stop, especially if you could spare more than a single night there. It would add about 40 miles to your trip. You might even enjoy it more than Beaune.

I don't happen to think that the train option is out of the question, if you drive to the TGV. It is sort of a borderline call. I wouldn't take the slow train from Brive, though. And you'll want to rent a second car in Burgundy, I think, unless you plan to ride bikes (which is an option).

What is your entire plan? Does it include Paris? If you can configure your itinerary right, you might fly into the south at the start of your trip, head for the Dordogne, and then north. In that case Dordogne > Paris > Burgundy makes a ton of sense, by rail.

Our trip is already ticketed in/out of Charles de Gaulle. Found great airfare last winter before we really gave our itinerary much thought. How long do you think that drive from Brive to Beune might take? Googlemaps says about 5 hrs.