The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
May 4 - The Road to Burgundy

This morning we said goodbye to Les and Judy Sykes, our hosts for the past three days, and drove off into the sunrise. (Actually we didn't leave until about 9am ... but there's nothing very poetic in that!)

We had an afternoon appointment to see a property in Burgundy so opted to save some travel time and go up on the motorway rather than take our chances with the more scenic route through the mountains. The autoroutes are in excellent shape and traffic clips right along at about 75-80mph. But there is a price to pay for that: our five-hour trip to Burgundy on the motorway cost over $50 in tolls!

After a fast lunch in Charolles we met the real estate agent and went 10km out of town to look at the first of two old water mills we came up here to see. It looked great on the Internet but the reality of it was quite different. The owners bought it for a vacation house when they lived in the Netherlands but then decided to move back to Vancouver Island in Canada and it has been sitting vacant ever since.

It looked like they had just planned to leave for a couple of days and just never came back. The car was in the carport, there were slippers in front of the chair and the closets were full. The rooms were tiny, of course, and we couldn't quite understand the bathtub in the pantry off the kitchen. Very strange. This was really a lot of house for the money with a lot of potential, but it would have also have taken a lot of money to develop the space.

Jean-Francois, the realtor, did his best and even showed us his book with photos of everything he had available in the area but nothing struck a chord. He was truly very gracious and patient with us.

We had one more appointment in the morning about 90 minutes drive away, so decided to spend the night a bit closer to where we needed to be. We made it to the town of Louhans in time to find a room at the Hotel du Cheval Rouge and enjoy a nice dinner in their dining room. I suspect it will be another meal that holds us for a day or more.

Au Revoir Les & Judy, Bonjour Moulin

Dinner at the Hotel du Cheval Rouge

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