[Itinerary Page]The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
November 29 - The Road to Burgundy
I am not sure if "getting there is half the fun" anymore, but a direct flight from Seattle to Copenhagen sure beats our usual connection through JFK. We left the Northwest at 7pm vs. 6am and arrived in Europe only a few hours later than usual. Originally we were going to spend the night in Copenhagen but decided to go right on to Geneva. This gave us a 4-hour layover at the Copenhagen airport, made a bit more bearable courtesy of the SAS Business Class Lounge. It wasn't luxury but it was sure a lot better than camping out on the concourse!
We stayed at a hotel near the airport and after ten hours sleep(!) were off at a fairly civilized hour to pick up the car, a little Opel Corsa. It doesn't have the zip of the Alfa 156 that we rented in Italy last year, but it trucks right along and seems to get good mileage (a handy feature with gas at $6 a gallon!)
The trip to Tanlay in northern Burgundy mostly on the autoroute, the high speed toll roads. It took about 3½ hours ... and $28 in tolls! The weather was light rain with a touch of snow flurries here and there but nothing that affected the road surface. Lots of tunnels, though, getting into France. If the weather is at all questionable when we return to Geneva on Sunday, I will probably come back this way vs. taking one of the winding roads over a mountain pass.
We arrived in Tanlay a couple of hours earlier than expected and were fortunate that Jean-Christophe, our host, was at the house taking care of last-minute details. We were warmly welcomed with a bottle of Chablis (we are very close to that wine-making area) and his personal recommendations of where to go, what to see and who to ask for at a couple of local wineries! I am also sure he was pleased that we got here a few hours early as he lives in Paris and had a 2-hour drive home.
Jean-Cristophe's father lives in the other half of our house ... or more accurately, I guess we live in the other half of HIS house! The building dates back to the mid 1800's and has been completely gutted and renovated. They did a superb job ... but it must have cost them dearly. We were expecting the house to be a little chilly at this time of year but there are excellent heaters everywhere and the place stays nice and toasty. In fact, our problem sleeping turned out to be that we got too hot!
The house is located right on the Burgundy Canal and I can see that it would be a lovely spot in the summer with the water and the occasional barge passing by. There is a walking path along both sides of the canal, a trek which I am sure we will explore before we leave.
There is not much in the village -- a pastry shop, a small grocery, a butcher but no restaurant we could find, so we headed down the road to the supermarket at Tonnerre to stock up on some essentials (coffee, paper towels, wine ...) The market was huge, kind of like a Wal-Mart with groceries. You could buy anything from flat screen TVs to fois gras. We passed on the former but snapped up the sale price on the latter!
In the front of the store is a rather large brasserie/pizzeria/bar where we opted to have dinner.
Dinner at ... the grocery store?
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