Day 17 -- "This car is filthy!"

Graham's theme phrase of the day: "Just think how pretty this would be if it were sunny!" Our hopes were high that the weather would improve as our hostess told us yesterday was supposed to be the last day of rain. We awoke to find that it was raining. Even harder. I was trying to have a good attitude but after a week of poor weather, I was having a hard time not focusing on how much extra we'd spent to travel in June so that we could enjoy warm weather.

Breakfast consisted of baguette with spreads, homemade honey bread, cheeses, ham, yogurt and coffee. We opted to head to Beaune and tour the Hotel Dieu, a medieval charity hospital, while waiting for the rain to let up. The hospital was fascinating! It had a colorful, patterned tile roof (very Burgundian) and huge halls lined with beds, attached together head to foot in one long line. The support beams for the roof in the pauper ward were held in the mouths of carved wooden monsters and painted busts of 15th century townsfolk lined the perimeter of the ceiling, making fun of the middle class by pairing each person with their animal twin (fat man next to a pig). Frankly, it was a bit weird. All of the decor was a combination of whimsical and morbid and was somehow supposed to comfort the dying, how, I am not quite sure.

The hospital had some of the medical instruments of the day on display. They included saws (for amputations) and ginormous metal syringes that would have been better off used as baseball bat than to administer meds (you would have needed to drill a large hole in the patient to be able to even insert the syringe's tip).

The rain was still coming down when we finishes the tour. Isla had (finally!) fallen asleep in the backpack so we found a little cafe and ordered a quiche and some tortellini bolognese and ate it at the bar so Isla could continue to sleep in the pack.

We wandered the puddle-filled streets of Beaune a bit longer until I could no longer stand the squish squash of my soaking wet feet and shoes. A fellow American tourist at the hospital had informed us that CNN had been reporting on the major storms rocking France this week. Apparently 20 people had died in the southern part of the country due to flooding. Wow, so I guess this weather thing really is serious!

Look at our cute French baby munching on her baguette (in her jelly sandals WITH socks...her mother did not pack any close-toed shoes that fit!)

Rain or shine, we were determined to taste some of the wines of the area that make this region famous.

We made our way to the village of Aloxe-Corton where we stopped at a tasting room. We tried a few local Chardonnays (MUCH better and less oaky than in the US) and some Pinot noirs. I felt that the reds were not sipping wines and definitely needed food to pair alongside. We also stopped at the Chateau Corton-Andre which was a beautiful, colored tile building that offered tours if it's cellars as well as tastings.

The current chateau was built on the site of the town's former church and the crypt had been converted into the wine cellar! We tried a chard and 2 young pinots. I really like the chard and decided I'd buy a bottle if it was affordable. It wasn't so we left empty handed.

We came across this adorable house nearby that I decided could be my French home. I made Graham take a picture of me in front of it. Isn't it cute?! Of course the view was pretty amazing too with all the windows overlooking the vineyards.

We took a leisurely route back to our B&B as we'd spotted a patch of blue sky and were trying to follow it. I decided to take this opportunity to appreciate Graham's foreign country driving skills and jokingly tell him "You've done such a good job of not crashing this trip!" He chided me that I shouldn't say things like that because I'd curse us. I told him I didn't believe in such things. Just then we passed a lovely field of red poppies so I asked him to pull over so I could get a picture.

He turned off onto the nearest side road (which, by the way, was in the middle of NO WHERE) but I did not like the angle so asked him to turn around. Rather than find another road to pull into to aid with the turn around, he decided to back off the road into a sloped patch of dirt/grass. I started squealing "No! Don't back up so far! What if we get stuck in the mud!?" Need I continue or can to take a wild stab at what happened next? As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the tires began to spit. The "dirt" patch was actually a mud patch and the slope was much steeper than Graham had anticipated. I remained calm and rolled down my window and captured my desired shot of the poppies while mud flew in all directions as the tires spun. We slid backwards even further going sideways one way and then the other. Graham tried numerous times to get the front tires onto the little patches of grass that had not yet been mutilated by our Peugot in hopes of getting some traction. After about 10 minutes of this, it was obvious we were going no where so I nobly offered to get out and push. I had the decency of mind to remove my cream cardigan and roll up my jeans but I knew that I might be committing my black dress flats to their last wear. It only took two pushes before my feet slipped out from under me and SPLAT, down I went, hands and knees into the mud.

Graham said he heard me smack from the driver's seat. It was useless. And still raining. I went back to the paved road and stood in the middle, doing my best to appear helpless. It worked! A kind French lady drove by on the main road and I waved her down. She hardly spoke a word of English so we used sign language. I'm pretty sure she mentioned "police" and maybe "tow truck." She had a cell phone and called someone (I later realized I think she called her husband but for all I knew, she was calling the cops). Oh boy! How much was this going to cost us?

The whole while, Graham was trying different methods to get the car out. The lady got out and stood with me in the rain as we tried to direct Graham. Finally, without warning, he spun the car around and drove deeper toward the field. I thought for sure he'd really done it now and that we'd never get out. But he gunned it in reverse and with a lesser degree of tire spinnage, we were out! My French lady friend and I cheered and I thanked her profusely for stopping and she went on our way, reminding us to drive carefully. Then I turned to look at the car. There was literally a 2-inch thick layer of mud coating the rear tires. Mud chunks had spewed all over the windshield, rear view mirrors and sunroof. It looked like we'd taken our two-wheel-drive rental off-roading, which actually is not too far from the truth I guess (shhhh, don't tell Hertz!) Graham got out to inspect the scene and started making comments about how he could smell the similarities between this terriore (mud) and some of the aromas in the wines we'd just been sampling. I sweetly told him that I didn't really want to hear about the terroire right now as I had plenty of it coating my hands, knees and shoes and could focus on it's fragrances later.

It was only then that dear Isla awoke...she'd slept through the whole ordeal (maybe she found the swaying and sloshing of the car back and forth rhythmic and therapeutic for sleep?) Gosh, and I thought today was going to be dull and boring!

We spent a little time cleaning up back at our place before returning to Beaune for dinner. It had stopped raining, albeit brief so we pulled off to capture some more pictures of the beautiful countryside (and the famous Burgundian white cows used in beef bourguignon).

We both LOVED Beaune and put it on our list of "Must Go Back To" regions. We rated it really high on the cuteness  scale. The buildings were built wall-to-wall and we especially liked all the iron lamp posts (see picture further down). 

 We had a bit of a hard time finding dinner. We were turned away from one fabulous-looking restaurant because we did not have a reservation. This caught us a bit off guard since there were numerous open tables and we hadn't needed reservations any of the rest of our time here. I wondered if maybe it was because we had a baby? But I was relieved to see a baby-less couple without reservations turned away as well. After getting sent away at our second half-empty restaurant for the same reason, I was getting discouraged. And hungry. But I guess when a typical meal lasts three hours, there is not a lot of turnover of tables and restaurants really only have one seating a night so when people have reservations...

By this time, it was past 8 which meant the restaurants were only going to get busier as the local French would now be dining. We found a table (in the very back room) at a more casual cafe. I ordered beef bolognese, only later realizing that we'd also had it for lunch. Graham ordered a menu that included pizza with sausage, mushrooms and chorizo, a plum tart for dessert (with almond flavoring? amazing!) and espresso to follow. We had a miniature pitcher of pinot to go along with. Isla was in a chipper mood and charmed the waitress. She had become quite good at munching on whole hunks of bread and had figured out how to grip it firmly with her gums and tear. She spent a good chunk of the meal working on a big one in her diaper which was become her dinnertime tradition about every three nights or so. Our late meal made for another easy to-bed for Isla as she fell asleep on the car ride home.