Finishing Up In Cremieu, Part 2

  Like last year, we finished our trip in the town of Cremieu, not far from the Lyon airport.  We left our gite in Beaucroissant on Saturday morning, and made a couple of stops on the way to Cremieu, which is only about an hour from Beaucroissant as the crow flies, although it took us a lot longer since we're not crows..

   Our first stop was in Saint Chef, a small town with some remarkable buildings, including a beautiful church dating from the 10th century, which in this case was open to visitors.

      We had a picnic near the center of Saint Chef, and then continued our drive. This weekend was the Isere's equivalent of the Ferme en Ferme event that we went to last weekend when leaving the Rhone area.  There was a goat cheese producer on the outskirts of Cremieu, La Chevre "Ry," that we planned to visit, and on the way we stopped to get a view of a chateau.  La Chevre "Ry" is presumably a play on the word "chevrerie," which means a farm that makes goat cheese.  We stopped to visit the farm, and the goats, and bought several of their cheeses before heading towards our hotel in Cremieu.

     For our last night we stayed at the same hotel as we did on the last night of our trip in 2017 -- Auberge de la Chaite. It's a wonderful small, old hotel with a great restaurant. After checking in we walked all over Cremieu again, stopping at the brewery Les Ursilines for a beer in their outdoor courtyard.  It was a beautiful afternoon, so we took several pictures of the chateau ruin high above the town and the former medieval priory that we had visited at the beginning of our trip. We also spied a cat that was curious but safely out of reach.

     In the evening we had dinner at the Auberge, which was just as outstanding as it was last year.  The difference was that last year it was chilly and we sat in the main dining room near the fireplace, whereas this year it was warm and we sat on the outdoor terrace. The food was outstanding, and the restaurant has an excellent selection of local wines, including several producers we had visited last year.  We had a glass of sparkling wine from the Caveau Bugiste in the Bugey region, and a bottle of Altesse (Roussette grape) "Marestel" from Domaine Dupasquier in the Savoie.  After dinner we took one last stroll around Cremieu.

     On Sunday morning we had breakfast at the Auberge, then took a short walk to the great bakery we had visited several times this year and last, and picked up some croissants to bring home.  We then drove to the Lyon airport for our journey to Boston, which, with a connection in Munich, seemed to take forever.  We arrived home late last night via the bus from Boston, having been awake almost 24 hours.