[Itinerary Page]The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
November 30 - Noyers and Auxerre
As I mentioned, our problem last night turned out to be that the room was too warm to sleep. I suspect a bit of jet lag figured in there as well, but in any event we were both wide awake at 6am. What to do? What to do? Why, get an early start to the day for a change, of course!
I should mention that being travellers rather than tourists, our normal routine on the road is to sleep to a decent hour, have a leisurely breakfast and head out at the crack of 11 or so. We find an interesting place, walk around a bit, have a long lunch then take a nap until it is time for dinner! Today, however, we were feeling like traveling.
When dawn finally broke, we had two things we didn't count on -- a skim of ice on the canal ... and sunshine! The weather reports we had before leaving left us to expect rain for our entire stay. What a nice surprise to have sun. Of course, this is when I realized that my sunglasses were still safely on the dash of the car ... in a parking lot at the Seattle airport!
Our first stop was in Noyers, about 15 miles south of Tanlay. It is listed as one of the most beautiful villages in Burgundy and every direction you turned was another postcard shot. Wednesday was market day in Noyers. In both France and Italy, many towns have a weekly market where local farmers and other vendors bring in their wares. It has been this way since ancient times and many still sell from the stalls and market halls built during that time.
In recent years, some food vendors have devised quite elaborate trucks that morph into full fledged store fronts (Click here to see one of these in action in Italy last spring.) The summer markets are much larger than their winter counterparts, of course, but it is still an influx of energy that seems wonderfully medieval in its way.
We poked around town, did a bit of food shopping and brought home a freshly cooked free-range chicken from Monsieur Gil's rotisserie truck. It was too cold for a picnic by the canal, but our cozy kitchen worked well enough.
Since there was still daylight left, we ventured off to the big town of Auxerre. It is an old historic place, but too big and confusing for our tastes. We did manage a little more shopping, though. Margene got the sort of French-English dictionary she had been looking for and we found a funky chicken for our living room. (Don't ask.)
After that -- and another stop at the Auchan supermarket for wine -- we holed up in the house and had leftover pizza for dinner!
Auxerre and the Auchan Supermarket
© 2005 Restaurant Doctor