June Visitors Round 1

In addition to being a busy travel month, June is also a busy month for visitors for us.  We're not complaining though! :)  It's fun to be a tourist in your own city sometimes, and thanks to a visit from Mom and Dad, and Nick's cousin, Chris, and his girlfriend, Lindsay, we were able to do just that!

Biking in Burgundy

And for a third consecutive weekend we set off for another adventure (don't worry no more traveling until July now). This time, we headed to the Burgundy area of France with my parents. It was a perfect weather weekend for biking, wine, and relaxation.

We stayed in Beaune, which I thought was a quintessential French town. Although much less busy than I anticipated, prices were not the cheapest we have seen in France. We spent a lot of our time at our hotel relaxing in the garden.

Most disappointing about Beaune is that their landmark building, Hospices de Beaune, is not able to be seen unless you pay to enter. At least the other buildings are still pretty!

After checking out Beaune's weekly market on Saturday and stocking up on picnic essentials, as well as local honey and mustard to take home, we headed out for a pretty full day of biking. 

We took the bike route south of Beaune, which takes you through the vineyards and through several small villages. We opted not to stop at any small wineries along our biking route as most had fairly pricey tastings, but we still had a great time enjoying the scenery. 

This is not a path for the light of heart...after 20 miles including tons of intense hills and biking into strong winds on the way back, we were pretty exhausted when we arrived back in Beaune!

Not so exhausted though that we couldn't handle a wine tasting and tour back in Beaune. We opted for the Patriarche Domaine because of good reviews. And oh, what an experience it was!  The 16€ price seemed a bit hefty at first, but at the end I considered it a real deal (especially when one private winery can cost 8€ for one tasting).

We began by touring the caves and bearing a bit of history of the winery. It was pretty interesting because it was self guided so we were in the caves all by ourselves! I wondered how they made sure no one moved any of the bottles around since we walked right next to them all the time.

Then it came time for the tastings, which was also in the caves which made for a pretty awesome atmosphere. We were told we would be tasting 3 whites and 10 reds, but I think it ended up being 4 whites and probably 12 reds and 1 rose (I kinda lost count by the end!). Not only that, but we were given a little metal tasting dish to pour our own, so if there was one you liked you could pour a second tasting. (And at 30€ a bottle, this definitely happened a few times.) 

Despite the awesome experience (and I still would recommend this visit), I reaffirmed the conclusion I had already made from grocery store Burgundy wine I have bought in Paris: this wine region is not for us. Most of the red wines are watery, fruity, and without much character. We prefer more full-bodied wines, which are possible to find in Burgundy, they just cost 30€+ a bottle for anything remotely sparking my interest. Even the "lower end" red wines start at 12-15€. I much prefer my 5-7€ wines I can get from Bordeaux and Cotes du Rhone at the grocery store, thank you very much. 

On Sunday we drove through some more wine areas before checking out the Chateau Rochepot on our way back to Paris. We are all castled out, but it was still beautiful from the outside. 

No blog post can go without mention of the food we ate, as you probably know by now! :)  The first night we ate the local specialty bœuf bourgnionon, which was delicious. But the real highlight was Le Goret (which means piglet) and serves only pig dishes. The chef comes out and explains the 4-5 daily pork specials to each table, in French.  (These are both good signs of a good local restaurant, in my opinion!) The real treat was watching the chef hack off your huge chunks of meat in the kitchen. 

No joke. HUGE chunks of pork...I'm not even sure how we paid enough money to cover the cost the chef paid for the pork at the butcher.  (Our meals were very reasonably priced.) The sauces and salads were to die for and we all walked out stuffed!  A definite visit if you're in the area...the chef is the only one cooking so they have very limited seating (book ahead if you can!)

Even Nick was in awe of how much pork he got!

All in all a great weekend and I'm glad we went. The biking is great and so peaceful and beautiful. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the wine, the area is worth a trip just for the biking in my opinion.  See all of our pictures here.

**Tips:  Stay at La Villa Fleurie. Much cheaper than anything inside the town walls but it's a short 5 minute walk to the old town. Eat at Le Goret. Hands down. Biking through the vineyards..you can't go wrong anywhere. 

Provence: Relaxation, Wine, & Beautiful Drives

So the May holidays are over, but June treated us with another 3 day weekend holiday right away. Nick and I headed to the Provence area of France, and decided to take an extra day to be able to drive. I was very excited for this trip and anticipated loving the area. We definitely did, but not for the reasons we thought. Wine played less of a role in what I loved about the area, and instead I fell in love with the varied scenery and easy-going way of life. We can't wait to go back, and it's now our favorite area of France!

Return to the UK

For our final May holiday weekend, we took advantage of the Eurostar and headed up to London to meet my parents, who had flown over from the US. We spent two days in London before making our way to Bath and Stonehenge. It was a great trip that reminded me of two things: how much I love London and how expensive the UK is!