After a few brief stays in France in the last couple weeks, interspersed with visits to Switzerland and Germany, our big tour of France has finally begun. We are settled in a rental cottage in northern Burgundy and are so happy here. We've been looking forward to the France leg of our journey for a long time - dreaming of a more relaxed pace, peaceful countryside and beautiful old churches. We've only been here for two nights, but so far it has lived up to all our hopes.
Our rental cottage, located in Millery near Semur-en-Auxois, is fantastic. It's built of stone in a quaint traditional style, but is probably modern. It's small but has two stories, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor and steep wooden stairs leading to a bathroom and bedroom on the first floor.
The bed isn't quite as small as we've feared, the fridge and shower are larger than we expected, and the internet works really well. Everything is very clean and the wood furnishings are new and slick.
Really nice extras include a washing machine, air conditioning, and a charcoal BBQ in our own little backyard! There is no tumble dryer (they aren't very common in Europe), but have already dried two small loads of laundry out in the fresh air. Fantastic.
Our place is out in the country among farmland and it is astonishingly quiet. The landlord lives next door and another family is on our other side, but we almost never see or hear them. The only sounds outside are the chirping of birds, crickets in the evening, and the occasional moo. What a change from the screeching mopeds of Italy!
Our landlord, Jean-Rene, is very relaxed and friendly. He speaks no English and seems unable to slow down his French, but I was happy to find I understood more than half of his guided tour and spiel he gave us upon our arrival (context and gestures help a lot to remind me of French words getting dusty in the back of my brain). I hope after a couple of months in France I will understand more.
We've made lots of new friends here, all of them four-legged. Our backyard joins up with a field of white cows, who occasionally come up to the fence to look at us curiously. They seem to be the Charolais cattle that Burgundy is known for, said to be one of the best-tasting varieties of beef. (We have already grilled some burgers in our backyard and felt a little bad to do it so close to the cows!)
Down the road are two very friendly and sweet donkeys, and a flock of sheep and lambs that come running and baa-ing if we visit at feeding time.
But best of all are the two little cats that hang around the property. We're not sure if they're farm cats or belong to one of our neighbors. They are pretty skinny, but seem healthy and happy. They were skittish at first but thanks to a gift of a little cat food they are now very friendly. They seem to be sister and brother and pretty young, as they hold regular wrestling matches outside our door. One of them looks exactly like the cartoon cat on the French food packet.
Unfortunately it has been mostly cloudy since our arrival and we've had several major downpours. But there are occasional sunbreaks and we've made a couple small photography trips anyway - more on those in separate posts.
This afternoon David watched the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on TV. It's pretty exciting to have two big events going on in the south of France right now - that and the Cannes Film Festival. We get extra coverage of both on French television. It's tempting to visit either one of them, which we could do thanks to the nearby TGV station, but unfortunately that's just a little too expensive and the crowds don't sound very fun anyway.
We'll be here for another full week, leaving Sunday June 1. Fortunately we only have a few must-see churches to visit while we're here, so it should be a relaxing week. We need it! I certainly don't expect anyone to sympathize, but after Italy we were so worn out and tired of traveling. Going home sounded pretty good (it still does), but we just can't miss France. So it's good to have a little home of our own for a week where we can rest up.