Not quite first thing in the morning, we loaded the dogs and, apparently, about half of our apartment into the car and took off. The first stop was their kennel, which Jolie promptly peed with joy upon seeing, as is her disgusting and only somewhat endearing habit. With them safely deposited (safely for us, mainly, since Juliette likes to ride standing half on the back seat and half between the front seats, either blocking out the mirror or good-naturedly bruising and scraping my blocking arm while she shifts around), we were ready to begin our southward trek.
The idea was to get to Beaune with a minimal fuss, so we stopped for lunch pretty much at random. Naturally, lunch turned out to be a four-course production during which Nick’s sunglasses vanished (again!!), so that didn’t go quite to plan, but we did eventually make it to our charming little hotel, with just enough time to tour the Hôtel Dieu and see the famous wine stores shutting down afterward. Whatever; it was one or the other, and we choose right:
And it’s not as if we wound up lacking for excellent local wine: we ate at the impressive Loiseau des Vignes, which had, if I recall correctly, 70 wines, all served by the glass. So, naturally, we spent a cheerful few minutes with the sommelier (“What wine would be good for stealing half of his appetizer off his plate without weighing down my palate for the poultry?“), who oh-so-conveniently knew what we had ordered for all three courses.
As, in fact, did every single staff member who had a hand in serving our meal, which was wonderfully refreshing. “What did you order?” gets annoying, especially from the person who took the order in the first place, you know? “Well, your menu had 35 different options, 20 of which looked delicious and two of which I had questions about, and then you told us about some specials, and I asked something about one of them, and…well, damnit, it’s not like I was exactly taking notes the whole time about where we ended up, you know? Not like you were….”
Ahem. Anyway. Beaune is really lovely, and that’s all.