Day 18

We left fairly early this morning to head for France.  The scenery as we leave is absolutely beautiful.  I will miss Switzerland and wish we could spend more time here.  We made our first rest stop in Switzerland and everybody wanted to use up their Swiss Francs so we all loaded up on Swiss chocolates.  We stopped for lunch at a French rest stop that was attached to a fairly large shopping mall.  They had delicious food and a lot of choices.  The scenery has changed again from mountains to hills and the French countryside is covered in vineyards.

We arrived in Beaune, jumped off the bus and hauled our luggage to the hotel, Hotel des Remparts.  It is a very old place that wanders in all kinds of directions and has several courtyards.  There aren’t any elevators but our room is only on the second floor.  We have a very unique room with a spiral staircase going up into the ceiling with a door.  We had some fun with our travel mates above us later in the evening as we heard them trying to figure out what the "trap door" in their floor was for - I think they heard GHOSTS!!

We all met for a quick orientation of the town and then we were free to wander around before meeting up again for a tour of a winery and wine tasting.  We headed straight to the Hospices of Beaune where we saw the most beautiful and colorful tile roofs. 

We toured through the facility and saw The Last Judgement Polyptych by Rogier van der Weyden.  The enormous polyptych was originally made up of fifteen panels of different sizes.  The painting was begun in 1446 and finished in 1452. 

The hospital, also known as the Hôtel-Dieu, was built in August of 1443 and received its first patient on January 1, 1452.  Elderly, disabled, sick people, orphans, women about to give birth and the destitute have all been welcomed for treatment and refuge, from the Middle Ages until today.

I did a little shopping and we wandered around town stopping to sample some French pastries and ended up going back to the same shop a second time because the pastries were so good!!  There was a beautiful local church that we visited and spent some time taking  pictures there.  

Our winery tour at the Marche Aux Vins took us down into their cellars which are extremely old.  When they excavated the tunnels they found tombs of some of the monks that served the area.  Part of the winery building was a church at one time and the monks were usually buried under the church.  We tasted three of their wines and some cassis, a fruit liqueur.  Paul especially liked the cassis and we were tempted to buy some but we didn't want to have to haul it around with us.  It is definitely something we will be buying when we return home.

From the winery, we walked over to a nearby restaurant for a group dinner.  Jennifer had chosen the menu and we were to have a true Burgundian meal as Beaune is in the Burgundy region of France.  We started out with escargot and parsley ham that was in a clear jelly stuff.  It was not very appetizing looking but we decided to be adventurous and tried it.  It was actually very good.  In France they normally eat 2-5 courses at their meals and take a minimum of 2 hours to eat.  We all had beef burgundy for our entree and then a cheese plate for our dessert which is very common here.

Everybody headed back to the hotel tired and full yet excited as we leave for Paris in the morning.  Our tour is fast coming to an end and you can't ask for a better place to "put the icing on the cake" than Paris - the City of Lights and Love!!