Burgundy Towns and B&B's

Denise, I spent eight days in Burgundy five years ago. It is a lovely region, with some real gems, but also rural. I could maybe advise you better if I know what kind of things you and yours would like to do. Rick's advice for the region, chiefly Beaune and Semur-en-Aixois plus day trips, is very good. I especially enjoyed the Fontenay Abbey, Vezeley, bicycling around Beaune, and some of the very small towns. Alsace is also enroute from the Black Forest and might merit some of your time.

PS It looks as though one can no longer have more than one paragraph in posts to this forum. /...../ Is that to discourage wordy people like me? /...../ If so, ouch, but I am afraid I will be reduced to only giving yes or no answers.

Adam: Welcome back, you must have been away from the board for about a week, that's when "it" happened - go to this topic for the details of the software problem that is still plaguing the board: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/54612/problem-with-boards.html * * * Currently none of the following are available: paragraphing, line breaks, text formatting, HTML code of any type, imbedded links (not a complete list, either).

In addition to what's in the book, we really enjoyed a week in Autun a few years ago, a town founded by the Romans as a garrison town, very interesting. Not far is the Celtic city of Bibract which is being excavated by teams from all the European Union countries. The Romans forced the Celts down to Autun when they defeated them. Auxerre is intesting, as is Guedelon, a chateau which has been under construction for twenty-five years using original medieval methods. It's projected to be finished in another twenty-five years. The masons, blacksmiths, etc. live there, while an adjacent medieval farm supplies food, wool, etc. You can eat a "medieval" lunch there, drink meade.

I'll add my vote to the recommendations for Vezelay and Autun. We also enjoyed several days based near Tournus. The chateau of Cormatin is close to Autun and to Tournus, and very worth visiting. We stayed at a very nice b&b, whose name escapes me. We found it in the Karen Brown guide (www.karenbrown.com). It was in a small village, on a wine-producing estate. I think it's also listed on www.specialplacestostay.com. One night we took up the option of eating dinner there. We were six couples; one American, one Irish, one Canadian, two British, and one French, eating outdoors, and drinking the product of the estate. Our hostess retired around 10 p.m., and we just around talking, laughing, and drinking wine for another hour or so. It stands out as one of our most enjoyable European experiences. PM me if you want me to try to look through my albums to see if I can find the name.

I highly recommend not missing Chateauneuf-en-Auxois - the most charming village I've ever seen. Also good is Rick's scenic drive which includes Chateauneuf-en-Auxois.

If you choose to visit the Vezelay area, you might enjoy staying at Val en Sel. This is a b&b located in a large manor house in St. Pere sous Vezelay, a small, very old town at the bottom of the hill from Vezelay. There is a gourmet restaurant in the town. The b&b owner was charming and gracious, often greeting us at the end of a day of sight-seeing with offers of tea or wine. She was a wealth of information about local sites. The manor house and many of its furnishings are very old. From the house you can drive to Vezelay in under ten minutes. Or, next to the house is an unpaved road which is the original pilgrimmage route between Vezelay and Santiago de Campostela. We used Val en Sel as a convenient "homebase" for sightseeing in the area last year.

If making a tour by bicycle in the Burgundy countryside is on your list, you can make use of the small scale b&b network of 'Vrienden op de Fiets'. Although primarly Dutch and Belgian, there's a large concentration of hosts in this particular part of France. http://maps.google.be/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117869826318271955714.000486520a11618c85770&z=5 http://www.vriendenopdefiets.nl/ > English Version More about cycling in Burgundy: http://www.le-tour-de-bourgogne-a-velo.com/ http://www.bourgogne-tourisme.com/page.php?lg=fr&rub=92&srub=&ssrub=&sssrub=&aujourdhui=2009-03-31