Bonjour France! Arriving in Beaune
I love going to places that aren’t well known by most tourists, and Beaune seems to be one of them. When I was trying to get tickets in Paris to get to this city, just outside of Dijon, no one knew what I was talking about except the Chinese dude at the ticket desk at Gare du Nord.
To get there, catch a train (preferably TGV) from Gare du Nord to Dijon, then transfer (usually platform J) and get off at Beaune, about 20 minutes. The platform for me was loose gravel, which then turned into tighter gravel, but it was by no means paved, so plan ahead with your luggage so you don’t kill the wheels. This is in Burgundy wine country, which I think is why it’s one of Chef Mavro’s favorite destinations in France.
It’s a cute town, and if you are able to drive in Europe, even better … it is a passageway to various other towns in the area so you can go wine-tasting as one would in Napa.
Maybe we are interpreting the layout of the place wrong, but usually a church is in the center of European towns. Here, the center is a park with a carousel.
But the buildings around it are awesome.
As you walk around, you’ll find a statue of Gaspard Monge, the inventor of descriptive geometry. He was born in Beaune and many of his papers address theories in math and geometry as we know it today.
Mandatory in France: Getting Ahnya escargot in the shell. These are standards on the menus in Beaune and always delicious!
Things to do in Beaune: You will see stairs at various points in the city leading to the ramparts. Do you know what ramparts are? They are the defensive walls around castles or forts, and Beaune’s makes an almost complete 1.5-mile-long circular path around the old town (private sections make a complete circuit impossible). People now live along the ramparts, and you are able to walk along this road that is above the city. The ramparts are dotted with eight bastions of different shapes and a few towers, including the bastions of Saint-Jean and Notre-Dame, the Square des Lions and the Rempart des Dames.
Another big reason people come to Beaune: the wine tasting. You can take wine tours, but if you are car-less like us, you can still find some nice wine caves in the city itself. This one is Bouchard, probably one of the bigger ones — you can’t miss it.
Bouchard wine advisor Elian Mathiot took us on a tour of the caves and gave us the history of the Bouchard family, as well as the lay of the land in Burgundy. The castle where the caves are located was actually built by King Louis XI in the 15th century not to be a residence, but to watch over the people to prevent a revolt and subsequently serve as a prison if needed.
Some of the bottles are old, really old. When they get mold on their corks, that’s a good thing.
The cellars run up to 10 meters deep underground beneath the property providing ideal natural storage conditions for Bouchard’s wines, including a unique collection of more than 2,000 bottles from the 19th century. The caves can store (if I heard Elian correctly) millions of bottles. This is considered “empty.”
People also lived in the castle, so this area (now used as storage for Bouchard wines) was once a kitchen. Can you see the centuries-old oven?
This is an area under the gardens that is being prepared for storage. Due to the humidity, growths resembling stalactites are sticking out of the ceiling.
The mansion on property where the Bouchard family once lived. This is now used for special occasions.
The tour ended with a tasting of six wines, some of which we really liked. It was good to start our trip with Bouchard, as we would see the label in various restaurants around town and could determine if we would pair Bouchard with our meals.
Ahnya with a little girl sitting outside her mother’s wine shop, saying “Bon jour” to everyone who passed by.
Up next: A day in Dijon!
These are just the highlights. You can see many more photos, wine, meals and architecture in my album from this day, here. (I’m only posting the outstanding meals in my blog.)
