2023 - La Loire à Vélo: 07/06/23

12-26 degC, a beautiful sunny day, with a persistent headwind until almost the end of the ride

Walk: 2km; total: 322km

We were in no hurry to get going this morning, so after breakfast, we packed up slowly, and were on the road just before 9am. As we rode past the Chapel of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, the bells tolled, telling us it was 9am. We followed the Route des Grands Crus (roughly translates as route of the great vintages) or route 51 and it took us up hills and down dales! Of course it does, grapes are planted on hillsides! It would have been a straight 34km if we’d followed Google Maps, however we would have missed on out some pretty scenery. Also would have missed seeing the grape pruning and what we believe to be spraying with sulphate to stop the mildew. There were lots of workers in the vineyards. There were also lots of bunches on the vines, with tiny little grapes. The other highlight was the sunflowers, they were beautiful and so bright yellow in the sunlight it nearly hurt our eyes.

We stopped for many photos along the way and at one stage there were so many we thought we might take all day to get there. Mornos was under the shadow of the Church of the Nativity at Morey-Saint-Denis as by then it was warming up. Would have been very relaxing if not for a work crew on site with their loud head-banging music. Never mind, we consumed our mornos and moved on. Lunch was also near a church, (they’re not far away wherever you are) at Comblanchien in a lovely park. It was then only 23km odd to our hotel in Beaune. We managed to cut a few km off that by not following route 51; it wanted to back track and take us up another hill for no apparent reason (we now know it was to see the view from a lookout). At this point Wendy was a little over vineyards and hills! The rest of the route into and around Beaune was pretty flat and we were at our hotel, B&B Hotel Beaune South 2 at 2:15pm.

We had received an email this morning telling us that if reception was not manned, we could check in using the teller machine. You have to have your booking number handy which Wendy did, and a couple of minutes later we were in our room, #100. It is a budget hotel, however the beds are good, the shower is hot, and the air con is cold, (very cold if you happen to set it too low) which is a nice change from the hotel at Dijon.

After a wash and a rest while watching the last 60km of the TDF stage, we walked to the Carrefour for dinner supplies. Most restaurants (the decent ones) open at 7pm, and we couldn’t wait that long to eat or we would expire; well Greg would anyway. He’d only had a banana and a piece of bread since breakfast. We opted to eat conveniently tonight (nothing wrong with their chicken salads) and will make an effort to eat out tomorrow night.

We really enjoyed the ride today and appreciated the work that the people along the way put into making their houses, farms and villages so pretty for us tourists.

The Carriers of the Big Grapes at Marsannay-la-Côte

Not far from the grape carriers

Spray outfit applying what we think is sulphide to stop the mildew

One of the spraying machines, they are very noisy

Some street art made from old vine trunks/stumps

Not a bad looking house - it’s now a high school - suspect an ex chateau.

And old well

A magnificent statue/sculpture outside a 9-10th century castle/monastery, now a Chateau that was purchased in 2012 by a wealthy HK businessman for $12mil, a bargain.