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 Roadside Stop to Beaune

December 8, 2001

(Written January 14. Way too long a delay!)

Dear Friends and Families,

We left our roadside stop headed for quaint villages. We were due some quaint villages after yesterday's fiasco with Nancy and the subsequent search for a hotel. This trip isn't supposed to be that much work. Anyway, we were in beautiful countryside and we had sun. In the words of Jean-Loup, a good French friend, "It could be worse".

Our map has little symbols for touristic churches and castles - crosses and dots. On our way south, we thought we'd try to see some typical crosses and dots. On our first attempt, we were rewarded with a wonderful drive through farmland and tiny villages. Except for the modern tractors, the farm buildings and villages could have been movie sets. You know, the famous French farms where resistance fighters sheltered downed American flyers or, much earlier, where the gallant French Revolutionaries plotted against the cake-instead-of-bread royalty. Picture perfect, but without landmarks so of course we were lost and we had to return to a main highway.

Our second search for a marked cross was more successful. We found the shrine to Joan of Arc at Domremy. Yes, that Joan of Arc. There was a monument to young Joan and the voices she heard. Today, if someone hears voices we certainly don't allow her to command an army, but who knows, maybe the French were right.

Today, we had the shrine entirely to ourselves. Inside, there were panels depicting Joan's rise and fall. There was even a years-old machine that, for five francs, gave an "English" rendition of her story of voices, missions, battles and toasty death. Well, we think it was English. The quality was such that we certainly didn't get much detail but the ancient machine did fill the church with sound and even turned on the lights for us. Multimedia.

So, our first map-designated cross was a success. Now, we headed for a map-designated dot. We could even see the castle on a hill above Domremy. Then we saw tourist signs leading to something called "Grand" and figured this was going to be easy, just follow the signs. After about 15 or 20 kilometers we concluded that the grand castle on the nearby hill could not be the Grand of the signs. But the road was wonderful and the scenery another movie set so being lost again was just fine.

Eventually, the signs to Grand brought us to Gallo-Roman ruins of Grand-Vosges. This had been a frontier settlement of the Roman Empire early in the first millennium. It had been a complete Roman town with a 17,000-seat amphitheater, stone houses, basilica, garrison, homes and enclosing-walls. All that remains are ruins of the amphitheater and part of the tiled floor of the basilica.

We first stopped at the amphitheater. All that remains of the original structure are the foundation walls. They had been protected by burial in debris up until the mid-1960s while the upper material had been carted away by locals for some of those movie-set farmhouses and villages. In the 1980's, a wooden covering was constructed to protect the ruins. The profile of the covering matches that of the original upper levels and the wood has weathered to the color of the original stone. The effect is quite impressive and it was easy to imagine the crowds cheering the performers in this isolated outpost of the mighty Empire.

There is also a museum showing a large portion of the mosaic floor of the original Roman basilica. According to the sign this building was originally part of a complex of buildings that served as church, city-hall, court, and treasury marking Grand as an important Roman outpost, although it was apparently abandoned by the mid fourth century having served only a few hundred years.

But enough history and searching for dots and crosses from our map. We now headed to serious country, to wine country, to Burgundy. On the way we zoomed past Dijon. Even the world's most famous mustard could not stop us now as we pointed to Beaune, the "capital" of the Burgundy wine region.

Soon we were passing vineyards and it seemed like every bit of space on the valley floor and east-facing hills was devoted to grape growing. We just had to go off the main road to drive slowly though the fields and villages. It was sunny and had "warmed up" to 5C (40F) so the top came down. Wonderful driving weather. (Picture #8)

Soon we left the fields and passed through the stone walls into Beaune. It looked wonderful. But that's another story.

Take care. If you can, put the top down.

Regards,

John and Marianne

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