Walk: 14km; total: 336km
After breakfast we took a slow walk into the city and just wandered whilst waiting for the tourist info centre to open at 9:30am. Using their map, we navigated to all the major sights, and others. The two standouts for the day were the Basilique Notre Dame and the Musée de l’Hôtel-Dieu - Hospices de Beaune (hospital).
Notre Dame dated from the second half of the 12th century and is one of the largest Romanesque churches in Burgundy. It has a large organ that dates from the 17th century, with four keyboards, a pedalboard and about 50 tunes we would have loved to hear it play.
The old hospital, a “palace for the poor”, was established in 1443 by the chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy and his wife. They were motivated by the suffering caused by the 100 year war and the plague. To ensure that everything was done just right they supervised the construction themselves. Only the finest of materials were used ensuring its existence for centuries. The original principles of charity and care have always continued, even today in the new hospital (we didn’t see the new one). Legacies and donations have allowed the purchase of a vineyard, the proceeds from which are used to finance the new hospital and maintain the old one in its current state. There was even a pharmacy, so Wendy was pleased. She didn’t recognise too many of the ‘medicines’ but definitely recognised the mortar and pestle, and suppository making molds!
On the way back to the hotel, we decided we deserved an ice cream for our efforts today. So we stopped off at the Carrefour, and unfortunately being a supermarket, we could only find boxes of four. Some may say this was a blessing, however, we do not have a fridge in our room and we are leaving tomorrow! Instead we bought some bananas and apricots.
Back in the room we had a little rest and then watched the finish of stage 7 of the TDF. Greg went for another wander into the city to check out the Town Hall and clock tower.
Dinner was from Carrefour again, different to last night, but just as tasty.
Inside the tourist info centre building
What it used to look like
A nice quiet street in Beaune
“Traffic jam”
Hôtel Dieu (old hospital)
Ward
A 1910 painting of the same ward
Chapel
The ladies loo
Kitchen
Every patient got their daily dose of wine
Unique water tap
Pharmacy
Those dreaded suppository molds
Mortar and pestle
Hospital garden - could have been used for growing herbal plants as well
Chancellor’s wife - Guigine de Salins
The Chancellor - Nicolas Rodin
The typical Burgundian roof on the hospital
Some nice tapestries
The original altar piece from the hospital chapel - kept in climate controlled conditions to preserve it forever
Notre Dame
The old wooden entrance
Looking out from the portico of Notre Dame (this is a photo Wendy took today; Greg found an almost identical photo on Facebook this afternoon, taken a while ago)
The organ
A tapestry that must be pretty special as the enclosure was locked and protected by alarms
Cloister
Chapelle St Etienne, now an art exhibition hall
Belfry known as the Clock Tower
Town Hall, a bit drab
Wall art
Pics from a private property Wendy unknowingly trespassed onto
More wall art
Fountain art
Pics from our walk around the city walls
Triumphal Arch
