A taste of regional France

28th September

• We got up early to catch the train to Dijon
• Train to Dijon was fully booked. Not another one til late evening. Crap.
• Caught train to Lyon instead.
• Arrived mid-arvo and went to hire a car. The first 2 places had nothing available. Avis had a small automatic (driving on the other side of the road we didn't want to have to worry about gear changes) for only $300/day!! Ripped off. But necessary.
• While Ben tried to figure out how to drive the car (searching everywhere for the handbrake, which, it turns out, is automatic!) I tried to figure out how to use the GPS.
• Got stuck in traffic, with the GPS insisting we turn down roads we couldn't turn down, because there was an inline skating race on! Half the streets were blocked off for it! Who knew rollerblading was so popular in France.
• We arrived a bit late in Vezelay, a tiny medieval village south of Paris. Our B&B hosts were waiting for us because they had to go out. Great B&B, called Le Porc Epic, but they don't speak any English. The ground floor of their house (which is on a hilltop overlooking a picturesque French valley) is an art gallery. There was this cool wooden sculpture, about 2.5m tall, of a spiral staircase made of books.
• Went to dinner at a creperie. Had goats cheese crepes. We both felt sick but Ben pushed ahead and ate a chocolate crepe for dessert as well. He regretted it later.

29th September

• Woken by the town hall clock outside our bedroom at 7am.
• Had our petit dejeuner. Another couple were staying in the B&B, Olivier and Amelia, two Frenchies. We spoke a bit in French but then it was clear their English was far superior to our French (it's embarrassing but it's always the way!)
• Walked around the tres petite village. There's a beautiful cathedral on the top of the hill. Most tourists to the town are actually pilgrims to the cathedral.
• We had a great idea to walk to the nearest town. It was downhill on the way there, so no problems, but getting back...
• We sat by a pretty little stream, enjoying the countryside cliches.
• Got lost as we detoured to see yet another old church. We had to walk through a field in the mud, past some horses, to find our way back to the main road.
• That evening we did more walking, going around the back of the village, beyond the ol town wall. We found a cute little 12th Century chapel and accidentally interrupted some Monks chanting! We didn't realise it was still "in use"! They weren't impressed.
• The creperie was closed (some kind of public holiday, Vacance du Soleil?) So we tried to find somewhere else with vegetarian food. Not easy. Eventually we had to contend ourselves with a restaurant that had one vege entree! So we ate tiny pieces of eggplant wrapped around a slice of goats cheese (about 3 cm in length). We asked for a main course size and were given 4 of them! We had to eat dessert just to try to fill up.

30th September

• We had petit dejeuner again with our French friends. They called Avis for us to change our car drop-off point. I gave them my email.
• Went to the Salles Fontayne, the Gallo-Roman baths.
• Drove through some gorgeous little villages. Only went on the wrong side of the road twice! (oops!)
• Went to the site of Julius Caesar's greatest victory, when he defeated the Gauls at Alysse St Treine (now the town of Alysia). It was really very cold on that hilltop. So, you could say cool in every sense of the word.
• Abbaye Fontanaye. Old Abbey and grounds. Ben got more and more excited with every historic site. It was very cute, like a child in a toy shop. Then, also like a child, he got a bit grumpy when we couldn't go to the Templar Church! There was a sign pointing off the road, but then it said "par rendez-vous" (by appointment). We tried to just go up and have a look anyway but we got forced off the narrow road by a tractor who yelled at us and we almost bogged the car trying to turn around and go back. When we got home, we tried to call to arrange and appointment but couldn't get through.
• Creperie wasn't open again (for this same holiday I think. 2 days!) so we decided to drive to Avallon, the nearest "big" town. It was clear Vezelay didn't have any culinary options for us. Half the restaurants in Avallon were closed too. Eventually found a nice looking restaurant... where we ate the WORST MEAL EVER! It was like a buffet from a Tabaret venue in Geelong (we should have known... Avallon!) We had cold potato salad and boiled eggs. No joke.