Local delights and fine restaurants combine for a gastronomic holiday to live in memory

It was at the end of a particularly fine Burgundian meal that I stretched back, swallowed another soothing mouthful of wine and commented: "You know, the Indians got it right deifying the cow. Any animal that can produce beautiful steaks, great cheese, then shoes AND handbags deserves a fast track to heaven." The only surprise, really, is that the French didn't have the Saint Vache idea first. Because this is a country that knows what to do with its cows. And its sheep. And goats. And geese. For one glorious week, I reveled in being a completely carnivorous, cheese eating, wine sipping hedonist. I thank all the animals, vines and chefs whose sacrifices made our holiday such a delight.

Our relaxed schedule and the fact that everything else was closed at mid-day encouraged us to embrace the long French lunch, and we quickly fell into the habit of finding a nice restaurant and taking our time. We didn't skimp. Since we were having only one large meal per day, it was going to be a good one, at a nice restaurant with multiple courses and good wines. After so long on a fish- and vegetable-laden Weight Watchers diet, every meal felt deliciously sinful. (Despite the excesses about to be described, plenty of activity, light breakfasts and dinners and a week of post-holiday vegetable soup means that only the blog entry, and not my body, carries a permanent reminder of my fall off the wagon.)

So, let's recall those marvelous restaurants in order of preference.

The finest meal of the trip, as so often is the case, was an unplanned and unrecorded little place. In this case it was Le Saint Etienne, about half way along the main street that climbs to the abbey. We were wandering about town, hoping to taste some local wines, when we asked the proprietress of one shop where we might find a restaurant with a good local wine list. She stepped out her door, had a quick conversation with her friends across the street, and soon we were passed over to their capable hands. One of only two occupied tables in the restaurant, we were a bit worried that emptiness indicated a lack of quality. Not so. Instead, it meant that we had the staff lavishing their full attention on us throughout our three hours there.

Three hours because we couldn't help but indulge in one of the chef's menus. We started with a soup of mussels, magnificently concentrated. Then on to foie gras with tomato chutney. Next, a grilled fillet of red mullet with a side of pureed cauliflower and black truffles that was tasty enough to make me a fan of that vegetable for the first time ever. All of that built up to a fillet from one of those adorable Charolais cows, served with a delicate yet piquant mustard cream sauce.
Next came the cheese cart, complete with some local cheeses that we'd been told about but hadn't yet encountered and a full cheese menu to take home as a souvenir. Regale de Bourgogne is bathed in Marc, a local brandy, and covered in brandy-sodden grapes before aging, making it a sweet yet tangy taste sensation. Ami de Chambertin is soft, aromatic cheese so pungent it makes the local Epoisses seem mild. And finally, a rich chocolate cake with a tart apricot and orange sauce. All served with frequent checks from the jolly head chef, who made it seem as if we'd made his day by allowing him to cook for us. This menu was 48 Euro which, though not cheap, was great value for money for what we got.

The unexpected delight of Le Saint Etienne bumped our expected front runner, the Hostellerie de Clos in Chablis, into second place. Expected because this was our one Michelin star rated restaurant, highly recommended by a colleague of Hillary's. We opted for the menu saveur (49 euro) and once again let a chef have his way with us. I was clearly too delighted by the food to take thorough notes, so I can no longer relate the delights that came with every course. But I can tell you that the creme brulee of foie gras might have been our single favourite dish of the holiday. The lobster bisque will live on in memory for quite a while, especially in the way it worked so perfectly beside the Guy Robins 1er Cru Chablis, Montmains 2005, that the sommelier helped us select from a wine list so massive it took real effort to lift. The main course was duck with poached pears and a pinot noir sauce. Just when we were wondering if life could get any better, they rolled out not one, but two cheese carts. One for cow, one for goat. Variety is, after all, the spice of life. This was all served in the delightful surroundings of a formally furnished but wonderfully bright conservatory, where the crisp white linens made the rain sodden skies seem a little brighter.

Not every meal was this lavish, although the all seemed to feature dishes of great quality. In Meursault we enjoyed Le Bouchons, a guidebook recommended restaurant that overlooks the picturesque town square. That's where I went completely traditional, starting with the escargot, dripping in butter and garlic, before moving on to a rare steak. All of which went perfectly with that rich, red grand vin de Bourgogne. And with the long, stomach-settling walk afterwards. In Noyers we ate at the Brasserie Petit Millesime, where I had an Epoisses tart that achieved the rare trick of being both substantial and delicately flavoured at once. I am normally not a fan of lamb but the roast served there, and recommended by our waitress, was fantastic.

We didn't always go posh, and found that even when we opted for very simple places we were encountering top quality. Our one bargain basement meal, at the Cafe Le Republique in Nuits Saint Georges, delighted with two courses (beef and ratatouille, followed by lemon tart) for 12 euro, and an inexpensive carafe of unnamed local red wine. A comparable meal at Le Grand Balcon in Beaune offered an excellent salade du thon and introduced us to what we would come to recognise as a local specialty: fromage blanc. This is, essentially, a mound of something very much like soured cream, served with a large sugar caster. Massive quantities of sugar made it quite tasty, but it was a one-time-only order. If you're going to sin, then doing so with proper cheese seemed so much more fulfilling.

Luscious whites prove to be Burgundy's best surprise

After a week of drinking our way through the heart of Burgundy, I started to wonder if the English language got something wrong using the word as a synonym for a rich shade of red. In my mind, it's now just as likely to mean a pale, almost translucent gold that flashes green in the right light. Because the white wines of Burgundy are just as glorious as the reds. Perhaps, to this palate, even better.

An exploration of Burgundy's whites logically starts in Chablis, a charming town in the northwest part of the county. The landscape is idyllic: Rolling hills of vineyards slope up from the lazily meandering River Serein, forests edge the hilltops like coxcombs, towers of chateaux tease the eye on various horizons. The town itself lies at the bottom of the valley, climbing gently up its own slope. It's easily walkable, and characterised by features that were becoming familiar: an austerely beautiful early Gothic church; bits of old city wall and towers; townhouses of prosperous medieval merchants sitting beside classic 19th century French architecture; a curious domination of wine shops and domaines. (There's also a nice complement of gourmet shops, clothing boutiques and home decor shops, making this one of our better shopping spots.)

Chablis was the best town we visited for available tastings. We spent a lengthy amount of time at William Fevre, one of the biggest producers in Chablis. It was here that I gained my most distinct understanding of "terroir" as our hostess took us through five wines, each produced from vines grown within a few miles of each other, each with a distinctly different taste. Beyond Fevre, we tasted at two more shops and could have availed ourselves of three or four more opportunities. In a region where we'd come to expect closed shutters and locked doors, this was miraculous.

The most important lesson for the wine neophyte? Never say you like chardonnay better than Chablis. Or vice versa. Because they're pretty much always the same thing. Almost all the vines planted around Chablis are chardonnay. Why, then, does the wine here tend to taste so different from the rich, buttery, oakey chardonnays that California drove to world domination? Terroir again. Chablis wines tend to be crisp and fresh with a minerality that's sometimes described as "flinty" or "steely". You can almost see the vines taking in the flavour of the pale, stone-strewn soil. Think lemonade vs. apple juice: both good, but very different. Compared to the rest of Burgundy, and much of the rest of the world, Chablis' chardonnays tend to spend less time in oak and more in steel. I tasted very little here that I didn't like, and found many wines that were both well matched with food and perfectly drinkable on their own.

Many wine experts believe Chablis is good, but that the greatest whites in the world come from the Cote de Beaune 100 miles to the southeast. The must visit names here are Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault. Unlike the marvellously tourist-friendly Chablisiennes, however, we found few wineries open for tasting.

Our best tasting experience here was at Domaine Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet, rather inevitable because they seemed to be the only domaine in the village open for tasting. (Neophyte lesson number two: do not pronounce the "t" in Montrachet, and do your best to roll that following "r".) Well geared up for tourists, Leflaive operates a hotel and restaurant as well as his tasting room, all of which are obviously targeted at the well-heeled foreign visitor. The staff was friendly, informative and fluent in English, and their performance was complemented by M. Leflaive himself, who stopped by tables to introduce himself and ask what has led us to his house. (We lied and said we'd read about him, because saying "you were the only place open in town" didn't seem particularly endearing.)

As with many of the larger makers we encountered in Burgundy, Leflaive actually produces wines from across Burgundy, owning rows of grapes in a variety of vineyards. Thus we were able to taste a Puligny-Montrachet beside a Meursault and a Chablis. Interestingly, we each had a different favourite.

It's fortunate that we got a sip of Meursault at Leflaive, and ordered a bottle of the stuff over lunch, because we didn't do any other tastings in that equally famous village. Instead, we had a long, meandering, post-prandial hike looking for any of a list of young wine making stars featured in an article in The New York Times. It became obvious, after fruitless searches for two and being haughtily turned away when we found one, that the writer had expected us to be looking for these names on a wine list, not on the back streets of Meursault itself. We didn't even find these worthy names in the local wine shop.

Still, it was a wonderful walk. Meursault sits on a low hill, with its town square at the crest and its affluent streets winding downwards. The streets are filled with prosperous farmhouses and elegant little chateaux; once again, he had a feeling that here was another place that had been prosperous for a very, very long time. When the architecture grew boring, you merely had to lift up your eyes to the patchwork of vines on the surrounding hills to be inspired. The lack of tasting in Meursault proved a point: you don't even have to like wine to enjoy a wine tour, because the landscape is such a feast for the eyes.

We love wine, of course. And those who opened for tastings were rarely disappointed, as one of us was almost always sure to buy a bottle. The ultimate proof of the success of our trip lies in the photo below, with each girl's investment on a different step. Much of this stuff needs to be cellared for years to be at its best, guaranteeing that we'll each have memories of this trip for many years to come.

Burgundy's reds provide an education in life's finer things

Any holiday with my friends Lisa and Hillary is always serious about wine. They both have distinguished palates, read seriously on the subject and invest in fine bottles for their cellars. (I'm less dedicated, but always very appreciative.) As a trio we've done local wine exploration in Italy, Spain and Tunisia, while working our way through a fine array of wine lists, bars, tastings and fairs in other locations.

Burgundy is without doubt the most serious wine region the trio has tackled together, and if you're going to be serious here, you have to start with the reds. The local tourist board suggests six different wine routes, each of which merit a day or more. With limited time we headed right to the centre of the district, concentrating on the Cote de Nuits and the Cote de Beaune. The first stretches North from Beaune to Dijon, the second South. (With really limited time you could skip the vineyards and concentrate on Beaune which, as the centre of the district, has a large number of wine shops and tasting experiences.)

The names on the map are the same ones you've seen on posh wine lists: Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Pommard. The wine route is actually a progression of picturesque small villages, each rarely more than two miles from the next, separated by the exquisitely maintained patchwork of vines. Most of the "domaines" (the houses which produce and sell the wine) are in the villages and actually share the fields around them. There aren't vineyards as in, say, California, where one owner controls a wide swathe of fields. Here, multiple owners tend to control a few rows each in a patchwork of fields.

This stems out of the French passion for "terroir"; the idea that the earth itself infuses the wine and food produced on it with distinct flavours, and that those flavours can change yard by yard depending on elevation, the minerals in the soil, which direction a slope faces, etc. Thus one of the first lessons you learn in Burgundy is that you're not just buying the village, you're buying the field. And each field has specific designations. A "grand cru", France's ultimate designation for wine, and the penultimate "premier cru", are not awarded by some judge based on the taste of that year's wine. They are solely dependent upon the field from which those grapes were harvested. Anything that comes from a grand cru field gets a grand cru designation and, of course, a grand cru price tag. (To me, this seems to put surprisingly little emphasis on the talent of the winemaker, but I suppose most of these vineyards have been in family hands for so long there's an assumption of quality.)

Thus the essential accoutrement for any tasting in Burgundy is an agricultural map of the village fields. Which most domaines have sitting atop their tasting tables as a matter of course. It is only by understanding where the grapes come from that you can properly appreciate the nuances upon which French wine is marketed. In general, the everyday wines are grown on the valley floor in fields close to the villages, while the premier and grand crus tend to be on the hillsides. When offered a series of wines to taste here, it is indeed possible for even only moderately sensitive taste buds to pick up the differences. In some cases the differences are extreme. A few thousand yards and a few extra degrees of elevation can make a massive impact and, in most cases, you could instantly taste the quality difference in the premier crus.

We didn't taste any grand crus. In fact, one of the difficulties of a wine tasting holiday in such a famous region is that the more famous the wine, the less likely you are to get a sip. A domaine may only make 3000 bottles a year of one type of wine; the only tastings they offer are to wine writers and industrial buyers. The rest of us have to buy on reviews and faith. Another challenge of this region is that all the better stuff you're tasting isn't meant to be drunk now. "You must keep this for at least five, but preferably 10 years" was a refrain we heard a lot. I will admit, I don't have the taste buds to imagine how this highly tannic, too acidic wine will mellow in a decade, nor do I have the cellar or the patience to let these juveniles mature. My mouth, and my budget, were more interested in things to drink now.

The inability to taste was particularly true in Gevrey-Chambertin, a village of just a few streets that encompasses nine grand crus and 26 premier crus. Napoleon insisted on travelling with the stuff and it's been getting celebrity endorsements ever since. Though tasting wasn't on offer, we did get a fascinating tour at Domaine Drouhin-LaRoze (notably after Hillary and Lisa both purchased bottles for their cellar). The chatelaine of the place, who married in to the fifth generation of winemakers and has given birth to the sixth, showed us around the venerable cellars filled with barrels of French oak and bottles acquiring their requisite age. Above ground stood a complex of gracious family homes and well maintained agricultural buildings, testament that this corner of the world has been prosperous for a long, comfortable time.

A stone's throw away, in a small village square, stood a tiny wine shop that carried a variety of the village's produce. Again, no tastings; it's all about recommendation and trust. I was interested to see what moderately priced wines from this exclusive village tasted like, so followed the shopkeeper's advice and purchased three bottles of plain old Gevrey-Chambertin village Burgundy from winemaker Sylvie Esmonin for 12 euro a bottle. We did our own tasting that night and I found my bargain buy delicious.

Just south of Gevrey is Vougeot, a particularly picturesque village with a single long street bisected by a stream flowing toward a mill with working water wheel, now turned in to a restaurant and hotel. Domaine Bertagne earned our affections here, not only for being open and generous with tastings (we'd had two earlier abortive attempts in the village) but for actually making wine in the courtyard while we were there. I had anticipated seeing more production, and while the yeasty smell of newly-fermenting juice was heavy in the air, this was the only time we saw the winemakers at work.

Another few miles south brings you to Nuits-Saint-Georges, the anchor of this little area. It's particularly famous for its hospital which, like the institution in Beaune, has a long financial legacy based on wine and has a particularly famous wine auction every year. We had a good stroll around town looking for several producers tipped by the New York Times, but our timing was particularly bad. It was 12:30 and everyone save one wine shop was shut up tight. We took the proprietor's advice and, after tasting a glass of the local nectar he had on offer, headed off for lunch. Even after meal time, most of the wine producers' doors stayed closed. They were all clearly too busy making their wine to waste precious time with tourists. Fortunately Nuits is blessed with some charming shops, so we were happily diverted before heading elsewhere.

A different day found us further south in the Cote de Beaune. This is a more mixed area, known for both its whites and reds. The most famous of the latter here is Pommard. Again, few "ouvert" signs were out and tasting opportunities were few. Except that the very clever vintners of Pommard have joined together to communally fund a wine shop on the main square run by a phenomenally friendly and informed young woman who, once she saw the level of our interest, spent at least an hour with us allowing us to taste a variety and taking us through details of each. Unsurprisingly, this made Pommard not only my favourite red wine village but the place where I made my biggest purchase, investing in a 2001 wine redolent with red fruits and just starting to get those earthy tones that the really mature wines have, that will take pride of place at Christmas dinner.

A few minutes up the road was Volnay, where we had the tiny local grower experience I'd been expecting more of. A sign and a barrel topped with a range of bottles welcomed us into Domaine Christophe Vaudoisey's courtyard, then a single shop, office and packing room where the little old man (M. Vaudoisey, I presume) grabbed a key and brought us downstairs into the cellar. In which he allowed us to taste the full range of his labour. It was here that I bought my experiments in cellaring. Two bottles will be living in our host's medieval vaults for seven to 10 years, at which point I should have something extraordinary.

While our adventures in classic reds were educational and delicious, they may have exposed me as a wine cretin. The mostly Pinot Noir based wines of this region are legendary for being complex, subtle and delicate. While exquisite with food, to my palate they don't fare well when drunk alone. I'm afraid that unless I'm matching wine to a specific dish, I still prefer the big, bold, fruity kick of a cabernet or a merlot. It may be a horrifying preference to a wine expert, but at least now it's a more informed one.

Clearly, the Middle Ages weren't so dark for the Burgundians

The Middle Ages get a bad rap. We all learn about dark times in which people lived in cold hovels and got raped and pillaged by barbarians. True, I'd be unlikely to jump into a time machine set for the 1oth century, but the 12th through the 15th could have been quite pleasant. If, that is, you could avoid the Black Death and have the luck to be a Burgundian merchant.

Burgundy is packed with impressive cultural sites and, although a handful come from other eras, the majority are medieval. No hovels here. Medieval Burgundians built lavishly endowed abbeys, elegant fairy tale castles and charming towns filled with prosperous townhouses, workplaces and religious endowments. Both land routes and rivers made this the crossroads of Europe, and it's obvious that the farmers and merchants here made the most of that circumstance. Most of Burgundy looks as if it's been prosperous for a very long time. Indeed, at their height the Dukes of Burgundy owned a swathe of Europe that encompassed modern day Belgium and Holland.

It was no surprise, then, that the city of Beaune reminded me a bit of Bruges ... the far more famous northern trading capital of the Burgundian dukes. Most people come here because it's in the dead centre of one of the world's great wine regions (of that, more later), but it is worth time to explore on its own. Its medieval walls and towers are almost complete, and provide both a lovely place to walk and an easy reference point. It's hard to get lost when everything is within a single, small loop. The church of Notre Dame is a venerable early gothic structure with some interesting side chapels; don't miss the light switches that allow you to illuminate each at will. There's a wine museum in the impressive surroundings of the old palace of the Burgundian Dukes, and plenty of interesting medieval buildings still in active use. The city centre is filled with charming shops, of which a disproportionate amount are devoted to wines and related products.

The blockbuster site, however, is Beaune's hospital. Luther rather undermined the idea of being able to buy your way into heaven, but before he did, that fine Catholic principal resulted in some excellent art and architecture and some magnificently endowed charitable institutions. (Oh, yes, and a lot of corrupt priests.) Founded in the 15th century thanks to donations from the Burgundian chancellor and his wife, the hospice de Beaune functioned as a hospital until the '80s and part still operates as a nursing home. Today, however, the main medieval sections have been converted back to the way they would have appeared in the 1400s. The main courtyard is particularly impressive, dominated as it is by the multi-coloured tile roofs so typical of Burgundy. The huge "room of the poor" is a vast vaulted chamber lined on each side with beds, capped with a chapel at the end so that the ill could always be in the presence of God. The blockbuster site here, though, is Roger van der Weyden's altarpiece, which once stood at the end of the room of the poor but has now been moved to its own display gallery. He was one of the greatest of the early Flemish masters and his characters glow with a realism and richness of colour rarely matched by other artists. This is truly a piece of art worthy of veneration.

Vineyards made up much of the endowment that has funded the hospital through the centuries, and you can still buy the "Hospices de Beaune" label, which is a particularly fine red Burgundy. We got a bottle for dinner that night. We felt, after all, it was our charitable duty.

Equally charming, but on a much smaller scale, is the village of Noyers. Once a prosperous farming town and fortified home to a prince of the church, today it's a quiet backwater living off its picture postcard appeal and its proximity to the main wine regions. A long stretch of town wall still stands along the river Serein, punctuated by seven surviving watch towers. (Most of these have been incorporated into homes, any one of which would be on my fantasy purchase list if I had vast amounts of money.) The village is most notable for its great selection of half-timbered houses, many of which feature fantastic carved detail. If you aren't as lucky as me to have friends to stay with in the region, then you might want to make this your base of operations.

Our third medieval masterpiece to visit was Vezelay, one of two Unesco World Heritage sites in Burgundy. The abbey is famous on multiple fronts. First, it is staggeringly beautiful, both in its placement on top of a high hill and in its austere Romanesque architecture. Second, it holds the (alleged) relics of Mary Magdalene, making it a much venerated point of pilgrimage for centuries. Third, it's awash with history, most notably as the place the combined forces of Richard the Lionheart and the French king met up to start their less than successful crusade to the Holy Land. Much of the carving and architectural detail was heavily restored by Viollet le Duc (the French Pugin) in the 19th century. Not perhaps "authentic", but certainly in the right style, the carvings are worth plenty of attention. Each column capital tells a bible story.

The village of Vezelay (population 473) was once no more than the outbuildings for service and support of the abbey. Most of those have now been converted to tourism. A single main road, mostly pedestrianised, runs half a mile up a steep hill. It's lined with restaurants (including he best we ate at the whole trip) and more tourist shops than we saw anywhere else in Burgundy. For some reason, it was particularly rich in boutiques for hand-knitted fashions, many of which were extremely stylish ... and very expensive.

Of course life didn't stop in the Middle Ages in Burgundy; there's plenty to see from other time periods. Our pick this trip was the chateau of Ancy-le-Franc, a Renaissance chateau designed by the famous Italian architect Serlio. You can only go through on guided tours and, as was typical of much of our trip, we were the only tourists there. So we ended up with a fantastic personalised, English tour through this treasure trove.

You get to explore the whole vast circuit of rooms stretching around the fantastic classical courtyard, one more impressive than the next in its lavishly painted walls and ceilings and ornate floors. Amongst the many memorable rooms were a private chapel with impressive 15th century frescoes; an ornate gold guilt jewel box of a room in which Louis XIV stayed (and must have felt quite at home); a hallway painted with a fresco cycle of the battle of Pharsalis, done with such virtuousity that some have claimed to see the hand of the famous painter Uccello; a wonderfully delicate lady's bedroom with golden wall panels each painted with a different, botanically correct flower. Ancy-le-Franc is on par with the much more famous chateaux of the Loire, and the company that owns and has restored it certainly deserved more paying visitors than just the three of us. While we enjoyed our private tour, I certainly hope they get better crowds on other days.

Next up, it's on to the red wines...

Burgundy gives me a whole new perspective on France

I have never shared the deep love of France so common in others. I have an intellectual appreciation for the country and have had many fine times there, but never found France to deliver a similar captivation to that exerted upon me by Britain or Italy. Until now.

Clearly, Burgundy is what I've been waiting for. Amazing food, beautiful wines, expansive landscapes, a high density of cultural sites with a low density of tourists and locals who are, generally, laid back, cheerful and happy to see you.

With the global economy collapsing in flames all round us, the advent of the Northwestern girls’ annual holiday seemed particularly appropriate. This year’s motto:

Qu’est-ce-que tu va faire?
Moi, je vais boire.

(Translation: "What are you going to do? Me, I’ll drink." This should be infused with a Gallic shrug for the right effect.)

In the dying embers of last year’s Tunisian holiday, we’d spun some fantastic plans for cruising up the Croatian coast on a small boat, dipping into hidden inlets, exotic villages and little-visited Roman ruins. The hefty costs for that proposition started to become obvious at about the same time the economy first started to falter and, thankfully, in the same month that friends closed on their second home in Burgundy. It was ours to use, as long as we left the wine cellar better than we found it. In a tough market, who could turn down that offer? Thus sunset on the 4th of October found driving into a tiny, backwater town called Ravieres in the Northern Burgundian district of the Yonne anticipating a week of rest, good food and fantastic wine.

Rest was particularly important. I don’t think I can remember another trip in our 9 years of traveling together when all three of us were so mentally and physically exhausted. The first two days were dominated by sleep and quiet reading with just a touch of sightseeing. Having a long morning in bed, however, proved to be a bit challenging as our friends' house sat directly beneath the church spire, where sonorous bells marked every hour and, particularly irritating, rang for a full minute each morning at 7 am. Ironic that on this, the holiday where we vowed there would be no alarm clocks, the location provided one anyway. At least we had the joy of ignoring it and going back to sleep.

The offending bell tower looming above our friends' house

By Tuesday our energy levels had returned and we were ready to hit the road, chalking up between 100 and 200 miles of wandering a day. Our average routine was a nice drive, a bit of late morning sightseeing or wine tasting, followed by a massive gourmet lunch, followed by more sightseeing or wine tasting. Then a return to the house for quiet evenings of reading, scrabble or cards, with more wine and a bit of bread, cheese and meat before heading to an early bed. Just what the doctor ordered.

In coming days I'll post entries on cultural sites, red wine, white wine and food. For today, I'll stick to a general summary.

Burgundy is actually quite a big place. We stayed in the districts of the Yonne and Cote d’Or, never wanting to go more than an hour and a half from our starting point. These are regions of remarkably picturesque countryside. Miles of fields stretch to far horizons, hills are covered with lofty forests, snow-white Charolais cattle graze decorously in emerald pastures, rivers meander, canals are framed by avenues of stately trees; all heightened by the fact that we were there at the apogee of autumn colour, so those forested slopes were blazing yellow and red. Every so often man has enhanced the landscape with castle, abbey or charming town: the fairy tale castle of Chateauneuf towering over the main highway to Beaune; the medieval church of Montreal on way to Vezelay (the top photo); the walled town of Semur-en-Auxois on pink cliff above a curve in the river Armancon; the crazy-quilt patterning of the tiled rooftops in big and small town alike. Such was the delightful backdrop of the world in which we found ourselves.

There are a lot of major sightseeing destinations here, and we barely scratched the surface. The abbey at Vezelay, the Renaissance chateau at Ancy-le-Franc, the medieval hospital at Beaune and the picturesque town of Noyers got our attention. Leaving me feeling quite deprived that I missed the art treasures of Dijon, the charm of Auxerre, the abbey at Fontenay and a list of interesting chateau. But a week, it turned out, was a very short time to discover this area, and sightseeing wasn't our main objective. That was wine.

The Burgundians are deadly serious about the product of their vines, which isn't surprising considering they've been acknowledged as one of the world's finest producers for at least 1000 years. In the main wine villages it seemed that every other building was a "domaine" producing its own label. Sampling these delights was not, however, as easy as we'd expected. Turns out that October isn't such a good time to come. The harvest is in but the wine is actually being made, and tourist season is considered over. Many of the domaines were shut up tight; others featured people who told us tastings weren't available. And then there were the blessed few who were open and pouring, all of whom will be mentioned in future entries.

In fact, the empty, closed-up feel went far beyond the wineries. All of Burgundy felt sleepy and a bit abandoned. Village after village featured long rows of houses with shutters closed tight, shops closed and few people in sight. We ate in near-empty restaurants and walked near-empty streets. It wasn't until our very last day at Vezelay (one of Burgundy's two UNESCO world heritage sights, Fontenay being the other) that we finally encountered other tourists in any number. We found this isolation fun, but also a bit spooky. Where were all the people? Clearly, we'll have to return to find out.

We also had to adapt pretty quickly to the French pace. It is hard to do much sightseeing, shopping or wine tasting in a country that shuts down from noon until 2:30. Alternatively, it's almost impossible to get any real food if the clock is pushing 3. Circumstances pretty much forced us to all those multi-course lunches with the really good bottles of wine. After all, there was nothing else to do, and we owed it to the spirit of the trip to taste the local wines one way or another. Furthermore, it would have been insulting not to indulge in a cheese course in a county that gave the world both Chaorce and Epoisses.

A typical Burgundian lunch: The Northwestern girls about to tuck into lobster bisque with a nice glass of Chablis

Just to make Burgundy even more interesting, consider what lies half way between it and London: Champagne. We made highly satisfying stops both on the way there, and back. There's no better way to stretch your legs after a few hours of driving than to enjoy a stroll through Reims Cathedral or a wander around some of Moet & Chandon's 18 miles of cellars.

Tonight I am back at home, filled with contentment. And a bit of trepidation. The economy continues to collapse, work pressures loom, diet and gym demand serious attention to counter the effects of this fine week. Reality sucks.

Qu’est-ce-que tu va faire?

Moi? I'll be writing these blog entries, re-living all those fine memories a few more times. Next: the cultural highlights.