t 5:30pm on Friday we (Erik, Julie, Madelyn, Tina and Greg) left Heidelberg headed for Dijon, France. Though the days continue to get longer as we advance toward spring, it was soon night, but the autobahn was dry and traffic moved quickly. What a wonderful invention, the autobahn. Where else in the world can you be driving 160kph and get passed by a Mercedes breaking the sound barrier at 240kph.
United States military personnel receive gas coupons to offset the extremely high price of gas here in Europe. They are available in countries that have U.S. military installations. We only have Germany coupons, so we stopped for gas in Freiberg, Germany (pronounced Fryberg) just prior to crossing the French border.
The French/German border is an open border and they do not screen passports, so our trip across was uneventful. Not far into France, however, we learned something new. French freeways have tolls. Imagine our surprise when the toll plaza took shape on the horizon. (We should have known by the signs, but our French isn't particularly good. Actually, our language skills were pretty much nonexistent, except for Tina, who had taken French in high school.)
None of us had procured French franks prior to leaving, so we searched our pockets frantically for the franks that we had bought the last time that we went to France. Fortunately, the toll was only 14 franks (about $2). We continued to drive knowing that we would need to pay another toll when we left the freeway. Really, how much could it be? How about 69 franks? We did have the money, but drove off into Dijon thinking about investing in French infrastructure bonds.
Dijon is the "Capitale De La Bourgogne" and it has a history dating prior to the third century. The Dukes of the area were apparently pretty tenacious. Dijon does indeed make mustard (we bought some, if you would like to try it) and is situated at the northern end of the Rue de Vin where most of Frances wine is produced. If you would like to know more about the history of Dijon, take a look at the Dijon web site.
Saturday morning we walked to the "centre ville" and discovered a wonderful market. There were fresh fish and other meats, vegetables, fruits, cheese (there was cheese bigger than Madelyn!) as well as other things like leather coats, old records and knives. A kilo of cherries and a half kilo of strawberries made a great snack.
Our afternoon was spent traveling south to a town call Beaune. The trip took us through large vineyards that stretched from the hills right down to the road. We didn't have any plans, so we were hoping that something fun would find us. It did. It started about a mile out of a little town, who's name I forget. Lining both sides of the road were small pine trees decorated with flowers (I mean a serious amount of pine trees!). We followed the trees and ran into a road detour that was the result of a wine festival/tournament.
We stopped and discovered that the entire town had been decorated with paper flowers. Doors, windows, trees, roofs. They were beautiful and they were everywhere. We walked the main street, watched the people and explored vineyards and an old chateau. We finished the afternoon by stopping at a winery. Now we can say that we've been to French wine country.