Biking & wine tastings in Burgundy

 

After our nice break in the Cinque Terre, we took a 12 hour train ride to Beaune, France. Beaune is in the Burgundy area of France just southeast of Paris, and is considered the "wine capital of Burgundy". The old town is surrounded by vineyards, mostly producing pinot noir and chardonnays. After our long day of traveling we basically went straight to bed in order to get up early the next morning to bike the "Route des Grand Crus". This 44km bike ride goes all throughout the major vineyards and villages in the area.

 

 

Although the grapes had already been harvested, many of the locals were out and about tending to the vines preparing for the quickly approaching winter months. The fall colors on the vines and surrounding trees was beautiful. 

 

 

Beautiful fall colors:

 

 

The small villages we drove through were magnificent, with old chateaus, stone houses, and cobblestone streets. It was literally like entering another time period. 

Once we biked the 22km out, we arrived in Santenay. Here we found one of the local wine cellars, suggested by our bike company, to do a tasting. The wine cellar was quite impressive and produced ~ 88,000 bottles per year; but only distributed it in France. The tasting was actually very informative and we learned quite a bit about the production of the wine and the wines specific to the area. After buying 2 bottles of course, we started our 22km bike ride back to Beaune.

Cool old windmill:

 

On our ride back it started to drizzle a bit, but was still very beautiful Since we had to leave early the next morning for Paris, we again retired early for the night...after having some of our wine of course though!

Jeremy in action: