Chagny - Chilling Out - Saturday & Sunday

 Saturday April 30

Château de Rully with some of their vineyards

We’re still in Chagny (pronounced Shaw - nee), but this time our being stopped is because there are so many things we want to do from this location. Saturday morning we visited with Sue, a delightful English lady who has lived aboard her Dutch ex-sailing commercial barge for the last 17 years. She’s just retired from operating wine tours throughout the Burgundy region and has worked on Hotel Barges cooking for a number of years. Sharing adventures and learning more about wines and vineyards made the morning pass quite quickly.

Getting back to Juniper we realized we had time for a quick ride to the Château de Rully, a 12th century castle that became a château and finally a wine estate. Being off-season we were not able to tour the grounds and castle, but it also meant the roads had few cars and when we walked the vineyard trails we had them to ourselves. A quick tour through the village of Rully and it was back to the boat to get ready for date night.

An example of the presentation made

Chagny is known for its fine restaurants as well as its wine. We were not able to get reservations at either of the Michelin restaurants but did get reservations at the highly recommended  Cepages Et Saveurs. A beautiful small restaurant with one seating for dinner. We arrived at 19h00 and didn’t finish our café until about 22h30. I wish it wouldn’t have been inappropriate to take photos of our meals. The presentation of each course was a work of art, and the taste was wonderful. A late night stroll back to the boat and it was time for bed.

Sunday May 1 - May Day

Today is market day in Chagny, and everyone turns out. Plus it is May Day, a major holiday in France. It’s our equivalent to Labor Day, a day celebrating all those that work for a living. We spent the morning at the market topping off our provisions along with finding a few new things to try eating and doing a lot of people watching. (There were plenty to watch.

Michael buying Joan a May Day bouquet

One of the French traditions for May Day is the giving of bouquets of Lily of Valley (or muguet in French) as a token of good luck. Legend has that this started on May 1, 1561 when Charles IX received a bouquet of these tiny flowers as a token of good luck. He liked the idea so much he gave bouquets to all the ladies in his court, and a French tradition began. Today it was primarily the children of the community selling the flowers. Michael had to buy Joan her good luck token.

The rest of the day was beginning boat projects including one that couldn’t be finished as the new parts don’t fit the old pump. Gotta see if we can find someone with the right tool to help us make a modification.  And, of course, taking even more time to read.

Bonne Journée,  Au revoir

Michael & Joan

Fromage, with an attitude

Cheese stall at the Sunday Market