A Visit to Burgundy

  On our first full day in Burgundy, I got up fairly early and walked towards the center of Gueugnon to pick up some croissants and other breakfast items. Rather than walking to one of the bakeries right in the center, I decided to stop at the closest one, which was less than a 10 minute walk, leaving the others for another day.

  After breakfast, the three of us (actually four if you count Ghislaine's dog Max) went off for a trip to a couple of chateaus about an hour from Gueugnon: Chateau de Cormatin and Chateau de Brancion.  As you can see from the photos below, the two chateaus are like night and day. Cormatin was a luxurious house of the nobility, and Brancion was a defensive fortress.

   Chateau de Cormatin was built by the Marquises of Huxelles in the early seventeenth century, eventually went through several changes of ownership before falling into disrepair, and then began being restored starting in 1980. We had a guided tour of the interior, then took a stroll on our own through the grounds.

Kitchen

   After leaving Cormatin we stopped in a small village, Chapaize, and had a picnic at a rest area just outside the center of the village. We then continued on to Brancion, where we visited the restored chateau and the medieval village surrounding it.

Chateau

Village

Village Church from the Chateau

    After leaving Brancion we headed back towards Gueugnon, stopping on the way to visit Ghislaine's parents, who live about 20 minutes from Gueugnon.  They're in their 80's, but are very active. Her father tends a large garden in their backyard, and her mother cooks and bakes, among other things. Our dinner at Ghislaine's last night included potatoes that her father had grown, and at their house this afternoon we were served an apple and cherry clafoutis that her mother had baked the day before.

     That night Ghislaine was attending a celebration for a friend's 70th birthday, and we stayed at her house and Ann made dinner for the two of us. Before dinner I opened one of the Maconnais wines we had bought the day before -- a Saint Veran from Domaine de la Greffiere.  Not surprisingly it was excellent, as we had tasted all of the wines that we had bought from the two Maconnais producers we had visited.

   Sunday was kind of a lazy day. In the morning, Ann and I took a walk into the center of Guegnon while Ghislaine slept in, having gotten home at 3 a.m. from her party.  We brought home some breakfast items from a boulangerie in town, and after breakfast we all went to a goat cheese producer in the next town. We had gone there twice on our visit last year, and I thought it was the best cheese producer I had ever visited.  It was just as good as I remembered, and we're planning to go back there on Wednesday on our way out of Gueugnon.  Unfortunately, that will probably be our last visit, as the cheesemaker, Mireille Naulin, is planning to retire this year.

   In the afternoon, we reprised last year's bowling expedition, meeting Ghislaine's 3 children and their children at the same bowling alley where we all went last year. Afterwards we all gathered at the house of one of her sons for aperitifs and dinner for the children.