To the Alps: Part I Burgundy

Having reached the source of the Seine River I now spent a few ways wandering across the French (and a little piece of Swiss) countryside towards my destination , Chamonix in the heart of the Alps. My first point of call as I passed through the Burgundy region (or Bourgogne to use the French) was a brief out-the-window look and drive-through visit to an amazingly scenic town called Semur-en-Auxois. Another hour or so south, partly on the toll highway, I pulled off thinking I could find a campsite (i.e., free) beside a lake showing on my map as Lac Panther. But I discovered that camping in France is a little different. They have these huge campsites for little RV/camper vans although, most people are like me are car camping. The cost for these camp areas (calling campings) are in the 14-20 Euro ($20 – 28.50) range just to pitch your tent. For this you get the security as these places are all fenced and have night patrols. They also come with swimming pools, recreations centers, and often a restaurant. All features I don’t really need or would use. Every inch of the lake shore was covered by a series of campings all trying to oust the competition in terms of the size of the pool, or the number of holes in their miniature golf course. So I did some exploring on back roads using my map and GPS and found a wonderful little campsite about half a mile along a grassy track leading off a country lane. There was no room for me to pull over so I hoped no cars or tractors would want past in the night and set up my tent in the dark. After a great night’s sleep I woke to find both sides of the grassy lane were covered with black berries (which I ate for breakfast along with my freshly brewed coffee).


It was then a short drive on into Dijon. I spent most of the day walking around this sizeable city of 150,000 visiting the market, a series of huge old churches, and an interesting museum called the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Dijon which has some amazingly carved tombs for early French Kings (you can see a picture of this by scrolling to end of the page under the Dijon link above). I made a special effort to see Eglise Notre Dame, a massive church built between 1220 and 1240. Major alterations were needed to the spire when in 1382 Philip the Bold (the King of France) captured a huge clock during one of his war campaigns in Flanders. Around the north side on the outside of the church (on a little lane called Rue de la Chouette) is a small stone owl (which is French is chouette) carved into the walls. It is said to grant happiness and wisdom to those who stroke it, so I joined the several other tourists and what appeared to be passing locals on their lunch break each taking our turn to touch the statue now worn smooth by countless generations seeking happy days.


With evening approaching I drove into the famous hills of the Côte-d'Or looking for a place to pitch my tent. This ridge of low limestone hills is blanketed with vineyards and is home to some of the most famous wines made in a country famous for wine. It was beautiful to drive through these little villages and up and down the valleys that bisected the ridge. But with no prospect of finding a campsite in such heavily developed land I headed through the amusing named village of Nuits-St. Georges and into what map showed was a fairly large forest. The Foret de Citeaux provided a bonanza of camping spots tucked into the woods and having found what I thought was the pick of the bunch I cooked myself a great BBQ dinner. You can by these one-time use disposable BBQ’s from gas stations. They come in a small box and all you need is a match to get them going. They even come with a bottle of water for dousing the hot embers. I had a feast of sausages of different types, fresh baget, accompanied with Dijon mustard bought earlier in the day.

The next day was a fabulous day of driving through the Burgundy country side. This was the sort of terrain that the location scouts for car commercials must seek out. Through flat farming areas vaguely reminiscent of the Canterbury Plains where I grew up in New Zealand, except for wonderful little villages all anchored by a historic old church. Across the mighty River Saône, although it is still quite small here compared to its size when it meets the River Rhone in Lyon. Shortly thereafter I passed out of Burgundy and into the Franche-Comté Region.