Monday:
Woke up at 7am to board the Eurostar to Paris from Waterloo station in London. It was absolutely civilized, simple, and fantastic. In the real world (outside the United States) trains work as a real serious way of traveling, unlike a shitty third world Acela to New York from Boston which I may say takes longer than going from London to France by an hour at a much slower speed with much more comfort. Moving on at the 260km we entered France gracefully under the chunnel without a notice other than darkness that you were underwater and entering another country. Once in Paris and with the rental car, which basically is a death box (though ever other car is tiny as well) I learned some things pretty quickly about the city of Paris and its regions. The 19th is heavily Muslim. You should NEVER drive a car EVER in the city. There don’t seem to be any driving rules other than the red light. If you happen to get on the surrounding area highway, which we did, you quickly learned rule #2 all over again. People drive like they are on a bullet yet they are in a Smartcar and more than willing to kill you and 16 other people by swerving in and out of lanes like no ones business. I seriously for one of the only times in my life thought I was going to not make it, in a car. Once we got onto the A6, a very lovely no speed limit highway, we drove about 3 hours to the most rural and one of the most beautiful town (Vezelay) I have ever been to in the middle of what has to be no where (yet it has a 9th century cathedral which I am seeing tomorrow). 
We pull into the gravel filled parking lot of what looks to be a chateau, but isn’t, of the restaurant and guest housing of Marc Meneau and the restaurant L’Esperance. The building is absolutely stunning and lit up like a postcard. Outside, as I am writing this, are what has to be a gaggle of ducks yet I can’t actually see them because it is so pitch black in this most rural town (though I don’t think this is fact, just my story). The gardens remind me of a French “Secret Garden.” Even in the blackness of night here, they are truly spectacular. Supposedly if I ate and stayed here in spring or summer you can eat outside, smoke your Cuban cigar and drink the house wine, which just so happens to come from the vineyard outside of the garden walls in a region one might know as Bourgogne, lol. It is truly hard to believe that on a road so deserted it is rare to see a car or even a light from a house that a restaurant recognized to be one of the BEST in the WORLD is going to appear in a matter of moments when the town itself does nothing but farm and the idea of anything more than a bakery is hopeful. 
The walk after dinner, which wasn’t a great start even though it cost a fortune, was dreamy. The town was entirely asleep. The only living thing not asleep were the rabid dog barking and the two teenage boys in the town drinking in some little café alone. Jerry and I spent the night wondering what on earth they could be talking about in a town of about 200 people. The buildings in () were amazing. Truly spectacular. From each brick you seriously got a sense that you were in some part of history that makes anything in the United States look brand new. Not to mention in this little town in nowhere there is some spectacular Romanesque church, complete with gargoyles, standing among the mostly abandoned houses in this farmers town.
Tuesday:
I woke to shower in the tub without a shower door, wall, or anything that could remotely resemble a shower. I sorta now understand why the French might smell. I rushed through a shower like I have never done before because I was so frigid from sitting in the tub without the ability to have constant water on me that I basically didn’t care if I washed my legs or not. After our three star breakfast (handmade yogurt, croissants, crème brulee, and freshly made butter and jams) we walked around 
Vezelay and its massive medieval cathedral which I am pretty sure I studied in art history classes before (though the rest of the town was like walking into history) before getting back into the car after exhausting the photo opportunities to head to Avallon which was a short little ride. One thing about Vezelay, a town of about 400 people that is set on a hill, is that it is like walking into a movie set or history book or something of some unreal nature. It is exactly what your wildest dreams of rural France look like yet it is so hard to believe that you pretty much walk around the entire time rubbing your eyes. We drove for a little over an hour to the heart of the white Burgandy grape. Upon arrival, and there is no question what so ever that you have arrived, for as long as the eye can see there is nothing but vineyards upon vineyards upon rolling vineyards. It is truly breathtaking. Wine in this region rarely shows up on menu’s of American restaurants even at the most expensive of levels. So each town is the name of a wine basically. 
And within each town live the handful of winemakers who go out each day and tend to their grapes. Grapes that they are extremely protective of; on land that is what is called the best in the world. They each have some plot of land and if you combine them all, the land just goes on forever. It really doesn’t though. Most of these towns seemed to be abandoned as they have a population of a couple hundred, no more than 500. We drove through the Burgandy whites and then on the other side of Beaune, which is where I am spending the night, is the reds. They call a road that we drove on the Rue de Grand Crus, or the N74 as we got to know it. The best red Burgandy (and most unaffordable wine) comes from Chateau Clos Vougot which is where I have some pictures of the inside of their touristy storage unit. They don’t actually sell wine here since the chateau is mostly for show but you can “buy” it down the road in the town that is of the same name.
For lunch, after our warm up course of bean soup with bean foam, we were given our appetizer of “head of veal” which basically turns out to be the lining of a baby cow’s brain with some unreal cooked oysters and a langostino. For my main course I had the chicken dish which basically is indescribable but the sauce was pink, followed by a cheese course, three crème’s as the amuse bouche and the dessert I ordered which was some sort of mocha marshmallow thing that I would sell a small child for. The entire meal was unbelievable and the first meal we had that has been “oh my god” to quote myself. If you ate here and were given a choice to either be guaranteed to basically become Danny Devito in weight or not, you would choose to eat in the restaurant which turns out to be in thee best white wine region in France, Shassagne Montarche. The wine that we got to drink, suggested by our chef who came out to greet us, is of the same name. More to come tomorrow morning.
"I sorta now understand why the French might smell."
LMAO
Posted by: SJ | November 15, 2005 at 04:34 PM