Barney & Lauri's Burgundy & Beyond Adventure

When we left for the US at the beginning of September, the wine harvest season had just started. Four weeks later, when we came back at the beginning of October, the harvest was almost completely finished, the grapes picked and most of the migrant workers moved on. With cooling nights under still mostly sunny and clear skies, the wine stock leaves had changed from their productive summer green to their colorful fall display, turning the vineyards into the golden glow towards the lowering sun. Thus, the name of our county, “Côte d’Or”, or “Golden Coast”.

Here, along the Route des Grands Crus at the renown Chateau de Clos de Vougeot:

Curiously, some parcels had single grape clusters remaining, I assume these are likely the ones that weren’t sufficiently ripe when the bulk was harvested.

Some wine aficionados might recognize the “Romanee Conti” name of the vineyard above as the highest valued vineyard anywhere, and as a world class Burgundian wine.

During September through October, several communities hold their annual wine festivals to celebrate the year’s harvest. These are good places for wine tasting and learning more about this ever intriguing subject. Educational tours are also frequently offered during this time of year. This year we visited Chablis, the village and white wine growing region NW of Dijon. While being a Chardonnay grape grown in Burgundy, this northern, famous Chablis white wine region has its own AOC (Désignation d’origine contrôlée) and thus can market itself as such. Here, we took a tour put on by the local winegrower association and learned about the geology surrounding the village of Chablis, that gives this wine its distinct character. As always, the ground/soil, geographic location, slope exposition etc, gives a wine its specific terroir.

My cycling friend Eric Mougenot, is the president of the Burgundian association of artists. Below on the right he is speaking at the opening of the association’s annual art show held in Dijon. In the photo right next to him, is Madame Natalie Koenders, the mayor of Dijon, to whom Eric introduced us.

The nice oil painting on the left depicts Dijon’s Place de Liberation and St. Michel church, which are located just a couple hundred yards from our apartment. Unfortunately this beautiful oil painting, of a site so familiar and dear to us, was already spoken for. However, we had a chance to meet the painter, a 91 year old artist, who enjoyed talking to us in German, as she told us that she had a German boyfriend many years ago, and that she would be pleased to paint another painting like this one, just for us. We are looking forward to seeing the result!

We keep finding interesting places to visit in our vicinity, like the village of Bèze, just 20 miles NE of Dijon. As in a lot of cases, I discovered the village on one of my group bike rides, and then later visited the place with Lauri. Bèze is all about its river, the Bèze, which bubbles up completely out of the ground in one spring at the edge of the village. Next to the spring one can visit a big grotto with an underground lake, open for tours during the summer half of the year.

The French have a way of honoring and celebrating the natural wonder of springs. All around France you find well posted signs, like “Source d’Bèze”, Source d’Seine, Source d’Ouche, Source d’Yonne, Source d’Ouche, Source d’Doubs, Source d’Jouvence, Source d’Suzon, Source d’Loue, Source d’Lison, etc., just to name a few coming to mind that we’ve already visited. All of these springs are developed as parks and highly frequented by the French for picnics, hiking, etc., especially on Sunday afternoons.

Here are some more pictures of the quiet medieval village of Bèze:

Bèze was founded in 629 AD with the Bèze Benedictine Abbey. Inside the Abbey’s former washhouse next to the river, we saw this Nutria going about his business, totally unafraid of us, as well as of the curious Barberie duck.

It’s a quiet, enchanted place, and when one looks closely, one can even discover big eyed owls growing out of maple trees:

After seeing the village we had a nice lunch at a local restaurant, and then stretched our legs with a 7 mile hike through the surrounding fields and forests. Another great day in Burgundy!

The season has changed and naturally more of our activities have moved indoors. Besides her watercoloring and ballet classes, Lauri now goes to a weekly hip hop dance class, where she rocks out with a 20s to 30s group. She also found a volunteer position by weekly serving in our Catholic church’s soup kitchen. And then there are the get togethers with her friends Claire or Christine for an aperitif or tea in one of Dijon’s street side cafes. More and more I keep hearing the reply, “You should have had that on your calendar”… And now, she just found out that one of her best friends from the US is coming with her husband to visit us next April in Dijon. All this, besides the swimming and yoga we still do together. Yes, Lauri is buzzing in her city of destiny, and if you know her, you know that’s when she feels most comfortable. I still have my bike riding routine and fortunately so far, the weather has been decent enough for it.

We also hosted another get together with some of our neighbors in our apartment, which was a lot of fun. We’re very happy to have found such good relations literaly right next door!

Here in Dijon the Christmas lights came on on November 29th, and families and shoppers flocked into downtown for the warm anticipation of Christmas:

As you can see below, the golden glow of the “Golden Coast” I talked about at the beginning of this post, has changed to the seasonal cold and monotonous wintery grey. With that, I am wrapping it up for 2025.

Starting December 11th, we’re off on our “Deutschland Reise”, a two week trip through the eastern part of Germany we’ve never visited. This formerly communist part of eastern Germany used to be called the DDR for Deutsche Demokratische Republik. The wall I grew up with, and which separated Germany into East and West, was built by the DDR the year I was born, in 1961, to prevent it’s East German inhabitants from fleeing paradise. It took until November 1989, 8 month after I left West Germany for the US, for the Cold War to end, and for the wall to finally come down. Now Lauri and I are looking forward to actually visiting this other, eastern, part of Germany, and I plan on posting about our trip in January 2026.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful 2026 to you all!