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on to NolayJun 26, 2005
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| Sunday morn Amy and I jumped on the Metro heading across town to pick up our rental car. It was a good thing it was Sunday -- almost everything is closed in Paris that day, so the crazy traffic was a bit less crazy. We said au revoir to the apartment (thanks again Serge) and to the Madeline, and found our way across the city with Amy at the wheel learning how to drive a Renault diesel stick) and me navigating. Our destination: Nolay, a small old town in the Burgundy wine country. After picking up our rental car we exited Paris without mishap and headed for the charming little French village --it's too small for a point on the Lonely Planet map, but it's fairly close to Dijon -- in the Bourgone region -- Burgandy to Americans -- and it's surrounded by vineyards -- in fact I could not see what else anyone there did for work aside from serving the tourist trade which did not really seem to be thriving. There was a lot of empty decaying building, stone houses that were built centuries ago, with sad broken windows and for rent signs tacked to the doors. That said, it was a beautiful place, narrow streets leading to fields of wheat and gardens along a canal. A staelt chuch right across from where we stayed and a solid market shed with a tile roo-- no market though. The night we got to town was the first day of a bienniel (sp?) -- an art celebration featuring dozens of sculptors from the region. It was a classic case of event-oriented art tourism, but the people walking from one exhibit to another mostly seemed to be locals. We had dinner in the park where there was a huge bronze bull (very realistic) and an oversized stainless steel guitar player (very abstract). The meal was grilled local sausages on French rolls and pomme frites (aka French fries) all washed down with beer and/or sparkling white wine (Amy's current beverage of choice. Nothing fancy, but satisfying and very good. Aftyer brerakfast in the garden patio where we stayed we spent the next morning exploring the town a bit more -- found a cool antique store that wasn't too expensive then went exploring the nearby countryside in the car -- very quiet, quite lovely -- we had lunch at a riverside restaurant in a town whose name I have forgotten, then took a tour of a chalet, an old castle actually, where one of the King Louis allegedly sent his unfaithful wife after telling the pople he had chopped off her head. Then it was back to Nolay to rest for a long journey to the Cote d'Azure... |
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