Watch for the Horses!!!!

Today we drove over to Nuit Saint Georges which is a village very close to where we are staying. It is somewhat larger and has much more activity than Villers-la-Faye. Seems like most of the shops were closed on Monday but the boulangerie was open (fantastic breads and patisseries although we didn't buy anything today!) as well as a few restaurants in the village centre. Our main purpose today was to find the larger market in Nuit Saint Georges so we could get a few staples for the kitchen but we decided to roam a bit first. The drive over there was really pleasant and we could see all along the country roads the kind of cycling we were going to have once we get our bikes on Wednesday. Beautiful visits and rolling hills -- there is a lovely downhill run into the village which, of course, will require a climb to get out! The harvesters were working hard in all the vineyards along the way and there were also horses roaming the pastures which didn't weren't fenced off from the road. For some reason this stuck in my head when I started to see the caution signs "Sortie de Camion" and my hilariously muddled brain translated that as "Watch for the Horses!!" LOL. I told Richard to be careful and stop for the horses. It took quite a while before my brain actually translated the words correctly as Vehicles Exiting -- by then Richard was questioning just how much I had actually learned from my months of review with Coffee Break French!! I thought it was quite hilarious and of course those signs will always mean "watch for horses" to me for the rest of the trip. We stopped for a light lunch while in Nuit Saint Georges at an outdoor cafe. We both only ordered a ham and cheese sandwich as we weren't particularly hungry for more. When they arrived I thought it may have been a prank!! -- each sandwich was a full baquette loaded with ham, cheese, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and lettuce with a lovely sauce on top. It was a bit embarrassing trying to bite into that baby!! We both had to cut the sandwich up to eat it. Richard managed about 3/4 of his but I could only eat about 1/3 and then just ate some of the fresh veg filling as it was so good. Won't make that mistake again. After a trip to the market and home to unpack the food, we headed out again to find the village Comblanchien which is also well within cycling distance. This village apparently has the BEST bread in the area but the boulangerie is closed on Monday. We will stop there tomorrow on our way back from Beaune, which is on our itinerary for Tuesday. Fresh bread and soup for dinner perhaps?! We were very excited as we drove through all of these smaller villages and countryside roads with very little traffic. The cycling through here will be just perfect! So anxious to get our bikes and get out there!! On our travels we saw the spire of what appeared to be a church or monastery. As it turned out it is a very large Chateau which houses in its "caves" a great selection of the local Burgundian wines. The building, the Chateau Corton-Andre, has a beautiful Burgundian roof which is very colourfully tiled. We went down into the "caves" where they store the wines to age for a short walk about and then tasted some Cassis liquor. This is made from black currants. I was surprised that it was not as sweet as I expected. It was explained to us that when the Cassis is made by these local producers they spend more time on the perfect balance of sugar to fruit to alcohol level, whereas the commercial producers just add more sugar to make it very syrupy and very sweet. We now have to determine how we might bring some of these liquors and wines home......I don't think that will be easy. One of the white wines in Burgundy that is recommended is Aligote. We found some today but obviously it was not of high quality .... didn't really enjoy it. A lovely relaxing day ...... looking forward to our visit to Beaune tomorrow. There is so much to see there. We can go on a tour of a private collection of Salvador Dali works (over 250 pieces) so that is very intriguing. Bonsoir mes amis.