OK, so Colmar was forever ago (pre-winter break) and I forgot to bring my camera, so there’s basically no reason to even write about it now. But I wanted to at least mention it on here since it got a butterfly and all. It was ADORABLE, timbered houses, cobblestoned streets, town squares, fountains, basically Belle’s town from Beauty and the Beast. And that’s Colmar. “A little town, just a quiet village” with sauerkraut and a museum with a display of altarpieces and sparkly bonnets…. and one of the best pastries I’ve had. The French version of a beignet, which is more like a big filled donut, I had chocolate. Also, the restaurant where we ate our lunch of the aforementioned sauerkraut played ABBA… exclusively.
Laura Rachal (our Lyon tour guide) had been in Besançon that weekend, which also happened to be when a friend of my fellow assistant Natalie visited. Made for a fun group and a fun day! Click here for Colmar’s tourism website to check out the sites I failed to capture pictorially.
Beaune
Fast-forward four weeks to this past Saturday for the second day trip of this post: the Burgundian town of Beaune. A cute town, not quite as cute as Colmar but there was wine to make up for that! We didn’t really think about planning our day until the train there, so mark another tally in the whim book. Lucking out, we got to walk around one of the prettiest French markets I’ve seen. Plenty of flowers, cheese, sausages, even strawberries are starting to make their appearance. We stocked up on some spoils for dinner, marveling at how very French it all was.
After walking around a bit more and eating some traditional French food served with traditional French attitude, we headed to taste some wine. For only 9,50€, we tried five different wines at Bouchard Ainé et Fils. Very fun and very different from the California wine tastings I did with mom on our San Francisco trip. At Bouchard, it was an entire interactive experience in which they attempted to connect each of the five senses to wine (I found “hearing” a bit of a stretch…) and talk you through the whole process of enjoying and evaluating your wine. Super enjoyable, though next time I’d really like to get outside see vineyards, maybe during spring break? I even ended up buying a bottle of a Burgundy Chardonnay (a white I actually really like) and will attempt to bring it home for a Boudreaux Sunday dinner. However, if suitcase space becomes too valuable I’ll just have to drink it myself and call it a packing party…
We chased the wine with a trip to Beaune’s most popular non-drinkable attraction, the Hotel de Dieu, a very old hospital known for its beautiful roofs. We complained a bit about the 4,80€ just to see some colored tiles but it was worth it, as was the entire enjoyable day. De plus, I even remembered my camera this time!
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