Barney & Lauri's Burgundy & Beyond Adventure

Late summer/fall was beautiful around here. We took a couple of day trips into the Jura Mountains for sightseeing and hiking, which are within a 2 hour drive SE of Dijon. I partly found out about the specific locations through some organized bike rides we did there with my local cycling group.

The Jura Mountains are an old mountain range just west of the much younger western Alps. The predominantly limestone rock defines the Jura and the “Jurassic” geological period, think dinosaurs and the “Jurassic Park” movie. The mountain range runs mostly north-south along the French-Swiss border. Due to their old age and eons of erosive forces, there are no dramatic peaks as you find in the younger Alps to the east. Instead, shallow rounded range tops and plateaus, with deeply carved canyons that expose the whitish-grey rock define the landscape, and the houses and structures in the area are built out of the same colored local rock.

Besides tourism and forestry, agriculture, especially dairy farming to produce the famous Comté and Morbier cheeses, is the predominant land use.

The Jura is also a wine growing region, known for its Vin Jaune du Jura, which is a white wine made from the Savagnin grape resembling a dry Sherry. It gets its character from being aged for 5 – 6 years, maturing in a barrel under a film of yeast. It is not a fortified wine and usually has an alcohol content of 13 – 15%. Typically it is paired with savory chicken in cream sauce dishes. Chateau Chalon, pictured below, is a famous AOC of this Vin Jaune du Jura.

Yes, I enjoyed plenty of bike rides as long as the weather permitted.

We also took a trip to Lyon, France’s third largest city, about a 2 hour drive straight south. We visited Lyon in 2013 for a couple of days and were impressed. Nowadays it is a beautiful French city and fortunately a far cry from what I remember from the late 70s. Situated at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers it is the gateway to France’s Mediterranean south and known for its cuisine and gastronomy, – think of Paul Bocuse. Here are some impressions:

Here one is lured by a tasty display of fresh oysters and white wine for lunch. The old part of Lyon, with its narrow alleys and multitude of small restaurants, sits on the western shore of the Saone river below the widely visible Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, whereas the vibrant city center with excellent shopping opportunities is located between the confluence of the Rhone and Saone.

Lyon, like Dijon and a lot of other European city centers, is essentially blocked off to car traffic, which makes for quiet and pedestrian friendly shopping, or simply enjoying watching urban life go by from one of the frequent cafes or restaurants. Naturally, it also makes it more challenging for the merchants or residents to be supplied. I’ve seen some creative solutions to this challenge, and recall seeing a small, enclosed, pedal driven UPS delivery truck, but was unfortunately too slow to get my phone out in time. Here is an example of a freezer trailer pulled by an electric mountain bike. I imagine that this loaded freezer trailer will get quite heavy at times when fully loaded, and despite strong e-assist and favorable gearing, will require plenty of pedal power and careful handling, especially on steeper grades.

In November my youngest brother Thomas, with wife Marianne came to visit for a couple of days:

After Black Friday the Christmas Lights came on in Dijon. Yes, Thanksgiving is not a French holiday, yet they’ve adopted Black Friday, because business makes the world go round, even here in France.

On December 15th I drove Lauri to the airport in Paris. She flew to the US to visit her parents and family, while I continued on to Germany to spend the holidays, visiting friends and my brother and sisters. All went well and on December 30th we were together again here in Dijon.

We’re very pleased to have nice neighbors here in our building that warmly welcomed us. Three times had we been invited to parties into their apartments, and in December we invited them into our apartment for a get together. They are always very much interested in learning about our lives here in Dijon and especially in the US.

The picture above shows Eric & Claire, our best friends here in Dijon. I met Eric through my bike riding group. He grew up in Dijon and due to his career lived and traveled with Claire in a lot of places before recently retiring back in his hometown of Dijon. Both of them speak excellent English, which, considering Lauri’s and my limited French language skills, is still a necessity for carrying on a meaningful, more in depth conversation. We’ve had several enjoyable outings together and feel very lucky that we’ve met them!

This winter we have had a lot of foggy days here in Dijon. Talking to our local friends, this is much more typical than last winter, when we almost had no foggy days at all and lucked out with a lot of blue skies with white puffy clouds. Overall 2024 had more rain and cool weather, mainly in spring and early summer, resulting in 12% less sunny days than average for the year, and later and lower harvest yields of agricultural crops including wine grapes.

Here are some pictures of a recent cold, but interesting, solo ride on the Route des Grands Crus south of Dijon:

Riding by I saw a horse truck and freshly plowed rows on the side of the road. That sparked my interest and made me turn around. Soon I found the row with the horse coming towards me. I got off my bike and quickly started to take pictures with the horse continuing to come towards me, … and coming towards me, … and at the last moment turning in front of the low stone wall. For a moment I was seriously getting uneasy whether the horse would actually stop or turn in front of the low stone wall and instead continue on, stepping over the wall and onto my beloved bike!

Watching horse and handler working together in such harmony was a beautiful sight. Relieved, I had a little chat with the horse handler, who told me that his horse is a 12 year old Auxois, a local, cold blooded horse breed. Later I found out that the vineyard the horse team was working on belongs to one of the highest ranked vineyards in Burgundy. No wonder then that they can afford such a special treatment, whereas on most vineyards the plowing is done by more economical machines that are not nearly as much fun to watch work.

Winter is a good time to visit museums and we recently visited one a little under 2 hrs east of here that I’ve been interested in seeing for a while. It is the museum of the oldest car company in the world, the Peugeot Museum. Yes, the family business that preceded the current Peugeot car company was established 214 years ago in 1810! Peugeot started with a steel foundry and built, saws, tools, grinders, washing machines, rifles, bicycles, and motorcycles before building their first vehicle, a steam powered tricycle in 1886, and producing their first combustion engine car in 1890. The Lion has been Peugeot’s company emblem since 1810. In 1976 Peugeot acquired Citroen, the innovative French car company that produced the world’s first front wheel drive car, first four wheel independent suspension car, first unibody construction, and first hydro pneumatic self-leveling suspension car, as well as being the first to mass produce a car with modern disc brakes. Today the Peugeot automobile brand is part of Stellantis, the fourth largest car company in the world. Like all Peugeots, including ours, they are still built in the Montbéliard – Belfort region in eastern France where the company was founded in 1810. Here are some pictures from the Peugeot museum:

Peugeot Cycles won 10 Tour de France titles with the last one in 1977 by Bernard Thévenet:

Peugeot foresaw a gasoline shortage and developed alternatives with firewood fueled and electric cars already in the first half of the 20th century:

My favorite car in the museum is this Peugeot 403 Cabriolet. You might recall the car from the Colombo TV series out of the 70s. This one here is just in “slightly” better condition:

Peugeot cars won an impressive multiple of awards, including three Indianapolis 500 titles, five World Rally Championship titles, seven Paris – Dakar titles, three 24 Hours of Le Mans, and three Pikes Peak Hill Climb titles:

The variety and multitude of products that Peugeot produced over the years is simply astounding. We left the museum with an emblematic Peugeot pepper grinder as a souvenir, which comes with a life time warranty on the grinding mechanism.

How to better finish the post than with some tasty dessert? The cake below is a “Galette des Rois” (Kings Cake), that traditionally is served at Epiphany, the day of the celebration of the Three Kings during the Christmas season. All the Boulangerie windows are full of them at this time of year. The crust dough resembles a pastry, croissant or brioche dough and the filling is Frangipane based, which is a cream of almonds, not quite as firm nor as sweet as Marzipan. The Galette usually is rich and nicely balanced in flavor, not too sweet, nor heavy, and it preferably is served while still a little warm.

The next post should be out in February, covering a totally different location.