OK, I pick up where we left offsomewhere near Joes place!
Day Four - We headed out of Cruzille and stopped by some of the amazing Cluniac churches in the area Brancion, Chapaize these are finely formed Romanesque churches from the 1200s. We then hopped onto the Voie Vert, a great converted old rail line that extends all the way from Cluny up to Chalon and then actually heads west along the Canal du Midi (incidentally, I heard a bit about extensive bike similar trails underway throughout France and other Euro countries, pretty exciting, Id say an amazingly beautiful and fast way to move through the countryside).
We hopped off the Voie to head into Mercurey, and headed up over the back very rough roads into Rully. Then down, back onto the Voie along the Canal, and finally, we arrive at the southern end of the Cote dOr, in Chassagne.
I managed to pick up the Bourgogne chambres dhotes guide along the way and it was very helpful late that afternoon we tried a chambres dhotes in Puligny, where we ended up staying. 49 euro, great value.
We hopped on the very minor old D route that parallels the N86 to the west in Chassagne this proved to be a great route, with some detours, almost the entire length of the Cote. Beautiful, easy, untrafficed riding I would say even if youre in Beaune, rent a bike and spend the day riding it is very easy. There is now a well signed Cote dOr bike route that would be easy to follow and takes you all the way there.
Watched sun set over Meursault eating picnic dinner from our gitedrinking a lovely Durieul Rully 1er blanc, cant remember which.
Day Five Early start to get into Beaune to mess around. I had copied the great maps in Coates Burgundy book and had them in order on my handlebar bag simply yanked off each one as we went along by the end of the day, my brother was sick of me saying We had a wine from that vineyard two months ago, or whatever but it was fun.
The weather this day was rough we hung out in Beaune for a while, ate a crappy lunch (how did we manage that?), stopped at Magnum wines, bought a couple of bizarre wines (a 94 Jadot St. Romain and a 92 Chevalier Corton Rouget, both of which proved excellent, esp. the Corton, which was a meaty wonder), and headed out of town only to be greeted by lightning. Ended up getting to Ladoix, where we took cover for an hour while a monsoon passed. Rain on and off all the way into Dijon, riding through the glorious prime vineyards of the Cote dNuits.
Tome 3 will be the final and will include the Burgundy Canal and Chablis.
Day Four - We headed out of Cruzille and stopped by some of the amazing Cluniac churches in the area Brancion, Chapaize these are finely formed Romanesque churches from the 1200s. We then hopped onto the Voie Vert, a great converted old rail line that extends all the way from Cluny up to Chalon and then actually heads west along the Canal du Midi (incidentally, I heard a bit about extensive bike similar trails underway throughout France and other Euro countries, pretty exciting, Id say an amazingly beautiful and fast way to move through the countryside).
We hopped on the very minor old D route that parallels the N86 to the west in Chassagne this proved to be a great route, with some detours, almost the entire length of the Cote. Beautiful, easy, untrafficed riding I would say even if youre in Beaune, rent a bike and spend the day riding it is very easy. There is now a well signed Cote dOr bike route that would be easy to follow and takes you all the way there.
