Our Rest Day in Beaune

We enjoyed a sleep in this morning before wondering into town. We walked through the old city and had coffee in one of the town squares.

After coffee we headed to the Hotel-Dieu. It is also refered to as the Hospices de Beaune Hotel-Dieu which in english means Palace for the poor.

The Hospices de Beaune was built in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin and his wife. Nicolas Rolin was the Chancellor of the Duke of Burgundy. The Chancellor and his wife dediced to found a hospice for the poor after the 100 year war which left most of Beaune in povety. They supplied the hospice with an annual income, vineyards and a saltworks to enable them to be self-sufficient. They also hired artists to decorate the buildings.

The Hospice is divided into different wards (so to speak) the Great Hall of the Poor is 50 m long, 14m wide and 16m high. At the end of the great hall is the chapel, this was to allow the sick to attend church services from their beds.

The roof of the hospice is covered with glazed tiles which create awesome patterns.

After looking at the hospice we wondered back to the campsite to partake in the French tradition of a 2 hour lunchbreak. Practically everything is closed from 12 - 2pm and all day on Mondays.

After lunch we headed to Marche Aux Vins Caves for some wine tasting. When you pay each person receives a small silver dish, this dish is used to sample the wines. It is an old tradition that the colour and aroma of the wine to be appreciated and checked. There were 18 wines to sample and each wine was placed on top of a barrel. You helped yourself as you walked through the 18th century cellar - from there you head upto the desanctified church for the remainder of the wines as well as the shop to pay for any you picked up on the way through.

Cam's favorite was the Premier Cru where as mine was the Creme de Casse - blackcurrent liquer.

We then stumbled to an internet cafe where i struggled to use the french keyboard while Cam went to the train station to book our tickets to Grenoble. After updating our blog site we wondered back to the campsite and had some dinner and went to bed.