Yesterday we drove 30 minutes west to Avallon, primarily to check out the carved portal of its church. The drive was beautiful and there were hardly any other cars on the road, which was what we were hoping it would be like here! The countryside and villages we've seen so far look a lot like England. In fact, as we drove through one village, which had old stone houses on either side and a roundabout in the middle, David said he felt the instinct to drive on the left for the first time in months!
One of the best parts of the drive was seeing the TGV (super-fast train) zoom through the countryside! We are only 10 miles from a station here, and it's thrilling to think how fast it could zip us to Paris or the south. David plans to park next to the tracks sometime with his camera and watch it go by.
The town of Avallon was larger than we expected and we had some trouble finding a place to park, mainly because it was market day. It's a pretty town, with a nice shopping street that leads under a 15th-century clock tower, past the 12th-century church, and out onto a tree-lined platform that overlooks a wooded valley.
For lunch we had delicious "Al Capone" burgers, with grilled onions and an herby secret sauce, at a sandwich place near the clock tower.