We have been here for three days. It’s been busy. We have been making up for lost time after leaving our beautiful villa with pool and pool table we are now in a little cottage with not much sun and a drippy shower, it is however amongst the vines in the delightful village of Meursault.
We have much to do as we are being joined, in a couple of days, by some whanau, a slice of home, some hugs, some catching up and no doubt some laughter. Long story short but we have to go to Dijon and Beaune before they arrive as they are heading there later on. We leave the car behind and train to Dijon which is real easy. Then walk into the centre. It’s really quiet as it’s a Sunday and everything is closed except the kids merry go round and the odd cafe. It’s quite strange as we are so used to all the shops being open all day everyday at home.
We tire ourselves out. Or at least I do so we sit in a square and order a coffee. It’s always an experience fraught with the unknown. We look at the coffee menu and decide an Amercaino is the best option. But it’s not and it tastes gross, but we drink it and watch the world go by. I love “squares” in France and for that matter Italy. It’s like all the families come out and meet and play and sit and enjoy the sun and company. The Notre dame is opposite and as I people watch I start church watching and I am once again intriqued by the architecture of these buildings that often took generations to build. The hundreds of gargoyles, all different. The spires, the tiles, the arches, the stained glass. Anyway moving on.
We decide we will cover more by hiring city bikes as there is no traffic and they cost 1.50 for 24 hours. There is a tourist trail marked by little brass owls in the footpath but we lose it often and end up pretty much lost but happy.
We stumble on a bric a brac or antique market and decide to park up and wander through. Check out the travel trunk and imagine lugging that around today. It is ingenious in its layout though.
It’s nearly time for our train and of course we head back and get lost. This time I am not happy as I thought we were nearly there and ditched our bikes but it turns out that we are quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks and its a long, hot, up hill walk way back around.
Back home the shops are all closed as well so we decide we have eggs for an omelette and half a baguette for dinner so all will be well. We decide to walk up to the foiles in the vines at the back of our cottage and the view is lovely.
We get home and decide to have bruschetta with olive oil from Ruoms and tomato from the markets and then omelettes seem to hard so we call it a night.
The next day we are busy busy busy. We are going to a village market up the road for fresh supplies for a welcome dinner. Then to supermarche for top up of essentials. Stop to drop this back home and then off to Beaunne to site see before they arrive. We are picking said whanau up from train station at Beaunne at 4pm. Tick tock goes the clock.
We get to the market at Nolay, to be held under the centuries old market Halle’s. WH tells me the roof is limestone and each square metre weighs 800 kilos or maybe it was 600. Anyway there is no market here.
We turn around and go to supermarche to get supplies and decide there is a nice butcher in our village so we will get the rest of the dinner supplies there. Alas the butcher is not open on a Monday so we head to Beaunne still having to stop and get something for dinner. Beaunne is beautiful and worthy of its very own blog so maybe i will just finish this story then and give it its own space.
We park at the train station in order of ease to pick whanau up and follow the signs to the tourism office so i can get a map and not get lost. We walk around in a ginormous arc and arrive just as they have shut the door for the afternoon. We walk back through the streets and it appears that everything is shut, just like Sunday. We then get a text from our whanau saying the train they are on is not moving and hasn’t done for about an Hour, they will miss their connection. We check for new schedules and decide to kill time by taking the wobbly tourist train. But alas the next connection is missed and we decide to trudge our back to the train station car park and leave to go again to the supermarche and buy a cooked chook for dinner and some tatties and salad and head home and come back later. The travel gods are not smiling today.
A couple of hours later we are bound for the station and we strike traffic (which we never have before) and my visions of waiting on the platform to jump and clap and hug as they leap of the train are gone. Instead we pull up double park and throw them in the back. Not without a hug first. Which feels good. Feels like home. Feels like love and laughter.
We get home and eat our cooked chook, tatties and salad and its delicious mixed with conversation and catch up.