The Definition of Chaleur

Those of you who have followed my previous wanderings through France know that I rather like Burgundy and am less than enamoured of Champagne. Here, in one day (yesterday, actually) is the perfect illustration why.

Yesterday morning, I left Langres, in Champagne, where I had been staying in a little hotel in the Citadel. My bill was somewhat more exorbitant than I usually tolerate, but after 230km in two days, I had refused to go back down the ridiculously steep hill to find somewhere cheap. Anyway, I was appalled to note that, for the first time in 6000+ km; the first time in France, as a matter of fact, I had been charged a whopping 8E to put my bike - yes, my bike - against a wall in their closed courtyard. Naturally, (because I can be really quite stroppy, you know), I protested. The lady kindly agreed to cut the bill in half. Oh, so only been ripped off to the tune of 4E then. Great. Welcome to Champagne.

An hour later, I crossed the watershed of the Marne. I know it sounds fanciful but something happens here. I noticed it before, when I went to Cluny and crossed into the Maconnais. The sky seems higher, the light more glassy and brilliant. The silhouettes of buildings seem sharper, as if they had been outlined in ink. And for the first time this trip, the sun shone with southern intensity rather than weakly through grizzling or threatening skies.

Oh, it was gorgeous. I wish you could all have been there, because it was the perfect illustration of why I do these trips. I cycled through wide pastures, once again grazed by lumbering white cattle, and passed in and out of scented forests, which encircled the low hills. There were grating crickets and dancing butterflies and buzzards soared the thermals, their high pitched mews rendering a ravishing solitude to this corner of France. I was back in the paradise of small things: the fields of gold sunflowers their faces turned southwards and strips of ripening corn. Then I noticed that there were no longer spires in the tiny villages, but strange little bell-shaped clochers tiled in coloured and glazed patterns - the toits bourguigone. I had, at last, crossed into the former Free County of Burgundy; once part of the Holy Roman Empire and latterly, Spain.

After days of comparitive isolation in the wheat fields and vineyards, suddenly there were waving tractor drivers and cars tooting their horns. I arrived in Gray and asked someone for help finding my chambre d'hote and they whipped out their iphone equivalent and spent 15 minutes trying to help me out. When that didn't work, he went to ask in a cafe and between us we found a plan of the town. So Benoit (for that is his name) proceeded to copy a little map of where I needed to go. And thus, after and exchange of photos; the obligatory 'Bon continuation', I cycled off to the Rue de Hussards.

Now, since I found my chambre d'hote (which was, incidentally, gorgeous) you might think that the story ends there. But, you reckon without knowing the Comtois idea of chaleur. Who should pop around a couple of hours later but Benoit, to give me the photo he had taken of me for my blog. Amazing. As I said before: what a country and what a people. I will never grow tired of being in France.

To cap it all, I then spent a fantastic evening with mine hosts, Eric and Benedictine. I was forced (well, not much force involved actually) to sample various wines of the region: a great white from the Jura; another fabulous blanc sec from Savoie and a truly epic Cotes de Beaune red. We had a four course meal for 10E (the wine alone must have cost more), and chatted into the night about the problems of the French economy, why Nikolas Sarkozy has a Napoleon complex, and where I might stay in the next stages of my route. Not content with simply giving me ideas, my hosts even called somewhere to check availability in Besancon. I thought nothing could equal the chaleur of Patrick and the marchands of Semur en Auxois, but it seems I had reckoned without Burgundy's imperial sister over the Saone. Nothing, it seems is too much trouble for the Comtois. No wonder the Flemish say that to eat well; drink well and laugh a lot is to live like a Burgundian. I simply love it here.