My Bourgogne consists mostly of the charming wine-making villages surrounding the town of Beaune along with Flavigny-sur-Ozerain to the north. But one day we decide to venture a little farther south to see what the village of Brancion (now called Martailly-lès-Brancion) is like.
As we make our way through the rural countryside, it’s a Burgundian feast for the eyes. The winding roads have us enveloped in hills dotted with vineyards, colorful tractors, bales of hay, and the lovely Charolais cattle grazing. The fairy tale just continues as we stumble upon this private château on our way to Brancion.
Upon arriving at Brancion, we park our car outside the village, as it is a traffic-free zone, and enter by the impressive medieval château. Looking down on the village, it is as though it has been frozen in time.
What we find is complete solitude as we have this “undiscovered” medieval village all to ourselves on a quiet, sunny October day. The red and golden colors of fall combined with the warmth of the sun are just delightful as we sit and enjoy a glass of wine in an auberge (a family-run inn or restaurant) that we have all to ourselves.
I still go back and forth tortured between my love for Burgundy and my love for Provence. One minute it is Provence, but then these Burgundian charms just pull me back in. The tug of war continues.
À bientôt!
So beautiful…it is a struggle to come up with a ‘best’. I have no choice but to have several bests. It was approximately the same time of year that my husband and I discovered Nernier on the French side of Lake Geneva. It was a stab in the dark (on the GPS actually!) and we arrived mid-morning to a nearly empty village with just one café doing a small trade. We joined those already there and felt very much like we were sitting on a private terrace. Very special.
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That area that you are describing as well as Lake Annecy have appealed to me for years too, and I hope to get there one day. I like that, that we can have “several bests.”
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