17th May - Burgundy and better weather

We’re having problems with our internet connection in our cottage so have had to revert to a wifi (wiffy in French) connection at one of the local bars. As such we are obliged to drink while composing the blogs. It’s limited our access to email so apologise if anyone is waiting for a reply.

Yesterday we took the bus to Dijon which is about 80kms from Semur. The bus is obviously used as workers transport as it only runs first thing in the morning and returns around tea time. All bus trips in Burgundy are Eu1.50 no matter what distance you travel. With petrol at Eu1.60 per litre you can understand why the locals use public transport. Unfortunately when we arrived we discovered Dijon was closed (of course we should have known it was Monday !!). Most shops open at 2pm on Mondays so we filled in the morning wandering the myriads of narrow lanes and then had a long lunch of smoked duck salad, poulet & frites and salmon with beurre blanc sauce washed down with local vin rouge. We spent the afternoon with a mixture of shopping (note for Paolina, or maybe Simon – French lingerie is much cheaper here than at IM) and stopping at bars until catching the bus home.

Today we finally collected our rental  car from the Hertz agent in Montbard (the one that was supposed to have been left at the station for us on Saturday). The lady whose cottage we are renting dropped us in Montbard and discovered the reason our arrangements failed was that they really didn’t want to accept Amex and their eyes lit up when we offered Visa instead – don’t you love the French ! Anyway we are now mobile and after a coffee at one of the bars in Montbard (see we don’t always have alcohol !) we hit the road. We are now able to get to the large supermarket in Semur and so have stocked up essentials including charcoal for the outside BBQ (we had steak on the BBQ a couple of nights ago). Some of the afternoon was spent at the laundrette catching up on washing (the cottage is too small to have a washing machine).

The weather has improved significantly and today is sunny and warm. The first couple of days were very cool with some rain. Hopefully it will continue to improve from here.

Tomorrow we are hoping to find a nearby town with a market as we’ve found this the best way of getting a taste of the local produce. So far we’ve succeeded with 2 very good cheeses – a soft Epoisses washed in Marc and a sheeps milk hard cheese.