Next day we take the train from Paris to Dijon and Jerome from Beaune picks us up in his van. I eat a sandwich of fried bread with melted cheese on top and a blubbery fried egg on top of that, ham inside. It’s called a Croque Monsieur and I wouldn’t recommend it, at least not at the restaurant by the train station in Dijon. I actually had to ask for mustard there, in a town called Dijon, Incredible!
We drive an hour to the quaint city of Beaune where Jerome and his three brothers live and where their family has lived for five generations. Jerome and his older brother Florant run a travel company called Detours in France and they are in charge of us having fun. The youngest brother, Ben, seems like he is actually having the most fun though. He is a wine-maker, and a damn good one we heard and then tasted. Jerome sets us up with bikes and within an hour of arriving in Beaune we are riding road bikes through all sorts of vineyards and tiny towns with big chapels bumpy streets. It is stunning and I am breathing easier after leaving the density of Paris and seeing the vast open spaces of wine country in front of me. We dine next door to our hotel (Hotel De Beaune) at the best little bistro savoring seasonal vegetable soups and sea bass crispy on the outside tender on the inside. The wine is all the stuff I’ve been drinking for months with Jerry. It is the best stuff on earth, but now I see where it’s from as every delectable bottle and taste comes from a different town, or even just a different row of grapes off of the same plot in the same town. It is incredible how much difference the land makes in the taste of the wine, and of course the ability and attention of the winemakers makes a difference too. They have winemaker's high school in Beaune and then college too, so these guys know what they're up too.
On Saturday, the day after we arrive in Beaune, I sleep all day. I want to get up and I feel this hot breath on me and these words speaking to me and this body laying on top of me and telling me “get up get up get up” but I cannot. I cannot get out of bed and my body is telling me this in no uncertain terms as I feel like 1000 lbs of concrete mixed in a bag. My eyelids will not open. It is perplexing to my man and I try, eventually, to will my weariness out of bed. I emerge downstairs for breakfast only to admit I am able somehow to ride my bike today, like I’ve been looking forward to for so long, I could do it, but everything in my mind/body says no. It is only once I get the allowance of, “maybe you should stay in today” that I readily agree and drag my bones back to bed, quickly make sure no buzzing or beeping will wake me, then shut the lids once again and fall in the deep hallucinogenic sleep I was in just an hour before not to rise till 3 pm when the maid comes in apologetically telling me she must clean my room so she can leave. I acquiesce, wake slowly, placing clothes on these tired bones and walk down the stairs out the door and into a town full of living people who have not been feeling weary and sleeping all day. I walk directly to the park one block away looking for a park bench to lie on. I am a stranger in a strange land so I am allowed to lay on a park bench and look hapless and homeless, I say to myself. I am in France and I don’t know if people just lay on park benches here like I would at home. I feel a bit uncomfortable, squarmy, out of place. There are teenage boys smoking and talking and looking mischievous on one bench, there is a couple in love smoking and telling stories on another bench, there is a mom and dad smoking and watching their kid walk around in circles near another. I feel like I can not intrude onto these French scenes with my sorrowful American non-smoking self. And then I see, for some reason, there is nobody sitting on the benches around the merry-go-round that is waiting for riders. So it is there I sit and vegetate and scarcely watch and feel my surroundings but it isn’t but one minute until a grandma and her beautiful granddaughter and grandson in these miniature woolen coats come by with big smiles glued on. Of course, they will go for a ride, if not many. Grandma is smiling and smoking. Her joy, her grandchildren, with their curly hair and rosy cheeks run and grab and touch all of the carousel horses until they find just the ONE that they love so much and with great excitement and zeal they hoist themselves up and await the magic… all for two Euros, maybe $3.
It is worth it.
I would have paid for it as I was stealing glances feeling oddly like I was doing something wrong to take pleasure just by watching the interaction and the joy of these kids riding fake horses. I felt strangely like my grandmother who I used to constantly catch just watching me and smiling with a faraway look in her eye. It was embarrassing for me to catch her, especially when I was younger, “what is she staring at?” I would think and be aggravated and embarrassed by all the attention. But, as I get older, I see that what we are all smiling and staring at. It is something that is long gone, how far gone is relative, the point is, it is gone, the real realization is, that it was something so special and fleeting and unmistakable and irreplaceable. To laugh, so free and hard and find such joy in a round and round and up and down.
When was the last time you did that??
Wine seems to be helping the cold that invaded my throat and then my sinuses and then the ugly thing that settled in my chest. I drink as much as I can every night, and not just ordinary stuff, but the good stuff, and it seems to clear out the crap. Now, four days later, I can say, it works. I am a believer. No cough syrup or pretty little pills, just liquid that opens wide in your tempered taste buds and brings joy to the sorry soul or the slobbering celebrants and anything in between.
It is impossible not to just feel a wee bit better on wine.
The ride we take on Sunday makes me smile like that child on the carousel horse. Once I mount my bike I feel free and unburdened as I fly through the bike path sized streets of Burgundy in 30 speeds. It is so simple, so pure to push, a little pull, and propel. We cover many miles and I forget my sickness even though I feel it in my bones. I ignore it and ignore the suggestions that I not ride here or there or up or down as to not get a chill in these damp cold October autumn days. The trees are gorgeous green and glowing gold. I push on without thought to the side effects of this medicine. I don’t care if I will sleep for two hours after I get home and drag myself to dinner after 60 km, an “easy” ride that has left me feeling limp. I don’t care. I saw snow white cows in florescent green pastures chewing on grass, I saw sheep in a flock playing under a tree seeing who could jump higher, I saw gorgeous/ugly snorty big cute pigs who talked to me, really. They would turn away and I would lure them back speaking in my best French accent. They would buy it “Cutie little piggies come back mo name, wee… wee… you want to be free, you will be so tasty…” We talked enough (me and the pigs) and the sheep were coming to see what was going on and I was falling way behind so I mount my “horse” and “gallop” off down the pasture of pavement that grips me and guides me onward, and, usually, upward. Through the fields we rode for three hours and my saddle was sore but my mind was light and free as I meditated on these journeys through here and there.
It was worth it. 12 hours of sleep and I am ready for more.
My parents arrived late in the afternoon to join us for one week in France. After I awoke I saw them and explained how much fun we would have and how much fine wine we would drink. They jumped right on board and we headed right over to the Bistro to test out my theory.
Jerusalem artichoke soup with burgundy truffles, crusty French bread with salty delicious melt-in-your-mouth butter, lamb ragu thick, brown, rich, savory and nourishing hand made by our chef Johan. We drank the wine from the region, which happens to be Pinot Noir and happens to be fantastic – smooth, playful, delectable, drinkable.
My theory was right, my parents exclaimed as we headed to bed fat and happy ready to ride in the a.m. across one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
We ride up and down and all around. I am impressed that my mama is making it all the way, almost, with just a little help from our motorized transport up the big hill. My dad, at 72 is hard to keep up with, really. I am so proud of them and happy to be out with them. I am still a little sicky and they are mothering me and I am bundled with everything I can be bundled with so I am toasty warm on this coldest day. We ride up and up and then are excited to careen down this gorge of moss-covered trees and rock crags. I am in the rear watching my mom take this hill like a pro on her hybrid “made for mommies” bike. She is no sissy and I see her chubby little legs just chugging along like a choo choo train. I am chuckling and just laughing to myself back there as I am keeping an eye on them for once, telling my mom before the great decent, “Don’t wipe out, mom,” she looks nervous, laughs and never turns back and I hear a "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!" as she heads downhill fast. Gravity pulls her down faster than me, she is chasing my dad and her legs are running like a hamster in a wheel. I am laughing out loud watching her and my dad zoom down this brilliant hill in the wine country. We are having so much fun and I am so happy that I could bring them here, instead of them bring me.
“How did we get here?” I think to myself.
I know it is as it should be...
We have a decent dinner at Ma Cuisine where all the winemakers go and where they serve things like poached eggs in red wine sauce and liver and sweetbreads and rabbit and pigeon. We drink some of that sweet stuff then go for another hibernating sleep. On Tuesday the weather is brisk again but sunny. Mom and dad head out on a historical tour of Beaune which gets them really excited. We leave at 1p.m. for a gorgeous ride winding through all the best vineyards in the region. I find my favorite point on the road to Santenay where I stop and lag behind to absorb the valley of gold, the Val d’Or. I cannot not stop and I am way behind and happy as the cows seem to be out there as they decorate the green and gold landscape with their bright, lumbering, chewing white masses.
Riding by the trees the birds escape into o the air. These are not just birds but pigeons, and not pigeons like you would think pigeons. It is pigeon like Dijon, pigeon in French sounds like that. They fly up into this sky of bright blue spread with clouds of all shapes and I am troubled to keep my eyes on the road as I want to follow the flight. My mom eats a pigeon for dinner tonight. I try it, a wing, greasy and gray and salty and tasty, but not enough to take a second bite. I think of these birds flying and the salty sticky taste in my mouth and then I see the beef on my boyfriend’s plate and remember those lovely cows and there was lamb in my stew last night and rabbit on my father's plate tonight. I realize, I have ridden through our banquet and enjoyed it on both sides. Riding and eating.
I cannot say the same for the animals…
We have lunch of simple ham on baguette in the square of Santenay and a ride on to Mersault before we pile in the van for the hour-long ride to Chateau Bagnols where we enter another world. A medieval world that transforms me and my mom into princesses as we cross the mote and enter the castle.
Chateau Bagnols to Moustiers Saint Marie in the mountains and then off to the French Riviera and Chateau Saint Martin, Cote D’Azur in Vence.
ALL good.
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