Tuesday 30th – Week 3 – Drive to Nolay / Beaune

OK, last night's dinner was a lie. It was at the restaurant we had had lunch the day before and while it was very nice, was 2 courses for Anne and 3 for me and there were no dancing girls or men carrying banners.

After two days in the hotel, we were up early-ish, showered packed and gone by 9:30. Checking out of the hotel is only marginally easier than packing up the campground, mainly because you have to walk everything to the car from the hotel room, rather than having the car packed right beside the tent. You also have to check the hotel room to make sure you haven't left anything – and yes, we did nearly leave all the camping gear in the wardrobe in the hotel room – and that wasn't deliberate. We had taken it out of the car, because the roof won't go down with the camping gear in the boot and I couldn't be bothered moving it between the back sear and the boot everytime we stopped.

The hotel has been lovely for two days, but it did have an extraordinarily small bathroom – 75cm square is only just big enough for a shower and the toilet was wedged so tightly between the wall and the handbasin that you sort of had to corkscrew yourself by sitting with your legs pointing one way to avoid the wall and your upper body the other way to avoid the handbasin. This was more a mild source of amusement that annoyance and it was very nice to have the two days in the hotel.

The drive today was in the direction of Beaune (pronounced bone), with two stops along the way. The first stop was at the town of Autun, with it's cathedral. The drive to Autun took about two hours, which was very pleasant with the roof down. While we walked around Autun, the temperature was soaring into the 30's, but it was a dry heat, so pleasant to walk in.

After leaving Autun, we stopped 40ks down the road at a small town called Nolay – which we had been told had a nice campground. On closer inspection, it appeared to be quite a distance from the restaurants in town, so we decided to head to Beaune where we had been recommended a couple of campgrounds from our UK camping guide book that was within walking distance of the town centre. The drive from Nolay to Beaune was through wine country, with grape vines covering every square metre of the surrounding hillsides. Everywhere we've been outside of Paris has been a wine “region”, but this was the first time we'd seen grapes planted on such a massive scale.

We arrived in Beaune to darkening skies and at one stage on the drive, drove over a rode with steam rising off it and puddles, so although we didn't encounter any rain, rain was obviously in the air. The 5 minutes it took to pitch the tent was a sweat inducing affair and that was just to hit in the 12 tent pegs. After that, we headed into Beaune at about .2:30 for our first food and drink for the day.

Beaune is a lovely little fortified town in the heart of Burgundy. It has a bustling historic centre, with many restaurants, cafe's and bars. There are also many wine cellars within the walls of the city and many of these were offering tastings and tours. We opted for our usual wine sample of a bottle of the local (this time Pinot Noir, which was served chilled) with a pizza outside in the shade.

The heavens did eventually open, which saw us first sheltering under a shop awning in the late afternoon. The rain shower did very little to reduce the humidity and a repeat performance at 10pm, while we were sitting in the campground bar made only a slight difference, so it was a very warm sleep in our wee tent overnight.