"A Hospice and Burgundian Vinyards" Dancer_alison's photos around Beaune, France

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Entry from: Beaune, France
Entry Title: "A Hospice and Burgundian Vinyards"

Entry:

"Today we left Paris and headed for Burgundy. Our first stop was the historic project Le Chateau Guedelon. It is a medieval castle, built using medieval tools and tradesmen, but started in 1997. It is an active construction site as stone masons, rope markers, carpenters, tile makers, and laboureres all work to build this castle. It was fascinating. Our guide explained the different techniques in building an authentic medieval Phillipean castle and explained the evolution of castle defenses. It was thoroughly enjoyable, though it would have been better had it not been 30+ degrees on the dry and dusty construction site.

After leaving Guedelon, we headed for our home base for the next two nights, the city of Beaune. Beaune is a small city of 25K in the heart of Bungundy. After checking into our hotel, we ventured into the town in search of dinner. Although the Bungundian cuisine was tempting, the sticker price of 25 Euro was enough to detour us. We instead found a lovely little Pizzeria with a cozy terrace, yummy food, and reasonable prices.

The next morning, we walked into town to visit the hospital, "Hotel Dieu". It is actually a medieval hospice, but they use the word "hospital" so as not to turn off any skittish Americans. The Hotel Dieu had two wards, one for the poor with small beds made for two, and the other for the rich with larger beds and "skylights" in the draperies so they could admire the ceiling art. The Pauper's Ward had a large chapel so patients could pray and prepare for death. The patients in the rich man's ward were more likely to survive and therefore had no chapel to repent. Both ward were served by an adjacent kitchen and pharmacy, all run by nuns.

After touring the hospice, we did a little shopping (OK, I did a little shopping and Attila did a little waiting). In trying to pay for my purchase, I discovered a compatibilty probelm with the chip in my Visa. Apparently France hasbeen using the chip for quite some time and some of the readers are not compatible with our new chips in North America. Anyway, it took several attempts (and an hour of our time) to contact my Visa company to find that out.

Armed with some fresh yummies from the boulangerie, we hopped in our car to take in the Wine Route through Burgundy. It took us through fields of vines, quaint little villages, and a breathtaking stone cliff. We stopped at the Chateau Rochepot, a medieval castle destroyed in the Frech Revolution and partially restored today. There we met a lovely French/Hungarian family (Attila makes a point of talking to everyone he hears speaking Hungarian... except in Hungary, of course). The gentleman was from France and spoke English so he helped by clarifying what the extremely-fast-speaking tour guide was showing us.

After leaving the castle we finished our drive through the vinyards of Burgundy and headed back to Beaune for dinner."
Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dancer_alison/20/1249892945/tpod...

Photos from this trip:
1. "Guedelon"
2. "Beaune"
3. "Wine Route"
4. "Rochepot"

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