Tandemonium: Burgundy France

Friday, July 19, 2013

Burgundy France

Stoker Kim and I just completed a great tandem cycling trip to Burgundy, France with two other tandem couples: Carol and Randy and Curt and Dona. We used tour company Discover France to arrange for a “self-guided” trip along the “Route des Grands Crus” from Dijon to Beaune with an overnight stop in between in Vosne Romanee. Our trip was from June 30 through July 7.

“Self-guided” means that we had hotel arrangements planned and Discover France moved our luggage to the new hotel when we changed. They also gave us planned riding routes and a GPS for each bike with the planned routes installed, a trip brief with a local representative upon our arrival, one dinner at the hotel in Vosne Romanee, an emergency number to call if needed and probably a couple of other things I am forgetting.

The name or our tour was the Discover France Burgundy Gastronomy and Wine Tour (see: http://www.discoverfrance.com/regions/burgundy_cycling_tour_sgp1.html) which we modified to spend more time in Beaune which Stoker Kim and I loved last time we were in the area. We felt we didn’t have enough time to explore Beaune and the surrounding area and asked Discover France to modify their normal itinerary and get us there two days earlier so we could spend more time there. We also got the 4-star hotel upgrade to keep Stoker Kim happy.

We always seem to find ordnance on these trips.

The courtyard of our hotel in Beaune.

As my previous blogs tend to concentrate on bitching about minor complaints I am going to try to change the format and discuss the things I liked the most first and save the bitching for the end.

Timing the Trip

Last time Stoker Kim and I were in Burgundy the small villages were almost all deserted and this lessened our enjoyment as it was difficult to find a café or bar that was open for lunch. In many villages the flowers were watered, the fountains were running, the streets were maintained but there were no people and the café, patisserie and post office were shuttered and locked. We took that trip later in July and we had much better luck this time as most of the villages were open for business.

Helpful Travel Tip: We noticed this time that the schools were still in session as we could hear kids in the playground in many of the villages we passed through. My theory is that the town can’t close while school is in session and that everyone loads up the Peugeot and goes on vacation as soon as little Pierre and Madeline are sprung for summer vacation. Check the school schedule and plan your summer European trip accordingly.

We found many establishments willing to serve us lunch and drink. Some photos follow:

The Rides

The riding in Burgundy is great. We rode from village to village through the vineyards along mostly minor roads or, better yet, on vineyard roads used mostly by the field workers. If Disney built a “FranceLand” for bicyclists this would be it.

There are hills in this area. The Discover France routes were doable on a tandem but we took the “easy” and “moderate” routes and were challenged several times. We never took a route marked “difficult” and that was a good decision. Some random shots of the rides follow:

Wine and Food

The eating and drinking was memorable. This is what you would expect but that doesn’t make it any less great. We traveled through the famous villages of Marsannay, Fixin, Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-Saint Denis, Vosne Romanee, Nuit St. Georges, Savigny, Corton and many others. Finding great food and wine was easy.

Other Good Stuff

Discover France delivered on almost everything that was promised. For the few negative details see the section on “bitching” that follows. Here are some of the things that went very well:

· Ride brief – We were briefed by Florian who did a great job. He was very knowledgeable of the area and gave us some great tips like a specific restaurant to visit on our first day’s ride which was memorable and a recommendation to pack a picnic lunch on another day when he knew that restaurants would not be available.

· GPS – They worked great. I followed the GPS exclusively and we were never lost. Stoker Kim and the others had important additional information from the written routes but for general directions the GPS were a big help.

· Hotels – We paid extra to stay in four star hotels and they were very nice.

· Maggie – Discover France’s US-based consultant was a great help with train tickets and many other things that I will not remember but are greatly appreciated.

· The bikes – For the most part our trip was mechanically trouble-free. I had a rear tire fail on day one and that was easily replaced with one of the two spares that I brought. Carol and Randy had a brake failure and some teething problems with their new bike but overall everything worked. Helpful Travel Tip: There is a good bicycle shop in Nuit St. Georges that had replacement brake pads for Avid disc brakes. If you are in the area and need parts they can help you. I don’t remember the name of the shop but our hotel found them easily on the Internet.

This is what traveling with three tandem bikes in suitcases looks like:

Disassembly at the end of the trip.

My tandem in a suitcase. This is my complete bike except the wheels.

· Beaune – A beautiful ancient walled city with most of the ramparts and moat still intact. We stayed within the walled “Old Town” but outside has many attractions also. Some photos of Beaune follow.

Beaune has a great street market on Saturday.

The result of the Saturday street market.

Our hotel in Beaune: Le Cep.

Bitching

As promised, I have some bitching to do. Here goes:

· Discover France should know that clients 60+ years in age riding tandem bicycles can’t enjoy themselves on the rides they called “difficult”. I know that because we were sometimes at our limit on the rides graded “moderate” and I spoke with a couple of riders on single bikes who were also maxing out on the “moderate” rides. This is billed as a “gastronomy and wine tour” and even the “difficult” rides should be doable with half a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet in one’s gullet. We never tried a “difficult” ride but that is because we are experienced and know better. I can see less experienced tandemers getting sucked into trying a “difficult” ride and having a bad day.

· Dinner in Vosne Romanee sucked. This dinner was the only one provided by Discover France and the hotel restaurant ripped off us and Discover France. We had nice appetizers but the main course a pan-fried steak of poor quality. Most of it ended up half-chewed in our napkins as it was so tough that it couldn’t be fully consumed. This experience was made more disappointing by comparison to our last trip where the one Discover France meal was at a different hotel in Nuits St. George and it was memorable. I know that for a fact as Stoker Kim and I still talk about it. The hotel restaurant in Vosne Romanee managed to deliver the only meal during the entire trip that we want to forget.

· The desk clerk at the hotel in Dijon sucked. He made a good recommendation for dinner but that is a pretty easy task. What he didn’t do was show any concern or consideration for me when I needed help.

Four of us with seven large suitcases (we had two tandem bicycles included in the contents) had just arrived at the train station in Dijon to start our trip and couldn’t find a taxi to carry us and our excessive baggage to the hotel. We waited around and, having been there before, I know that the hotel La Cloche was only about ¼-mile away so I volunteered to leave the others and run there to get assistance.

The hotel clerk called a taxi but he was on the phone for a long time and I didn’t have a good feeling. After waiting for about ten-minutes I asked him about the outlook for getting help for my travel partners who were still waiting at the train station and he said that it was Sunday and taxis are a problem. He suggested that I wait some more.

About 15-minutes later a black Mercedes van pulled up. It was a tour operator dropping off his clients. They chatted for about 5-minutes about their day and said good-bye. The hotel desk clerk came out and was talking to the van driver and I was sure he was asking him to help me with my problem but the hotel clerk went back inside after about another 5-minutes and the van driver started to drive away. I ran up to him and asked if he could help me.

After some talking he said that he wasn’t a cab driver but he could give me a tour of the train station and back to the hotel if I was willing to pay for his services, wink wink. I was happy to get his help so I paid what he asked and we rode down to station.

My problem is that the hotel desk clerk didn’t seem to care that their guests were ¼-mile away with a lot of luggage and no way to get to the hotel. The trip from Dulles Airport to Paris and then from Paris to Dijon on the train was easy compared to that last ¼-mile. And he was friends with the tour van driver but never even thought to ask him if he would oblige with a favor and help out his guests. I had to do that on my own.

I always hear that hotel desk managers in Europe are very professional and will do anything for their guests. This guy did nothing for me and didn’t seem to care. He is responsible for my trip getting started with a bad experience.

Paris

Our trip ended with a couple of days in Paris before flying home. We had more great food and wine and I got to take a morning run from our hotel, up the Seine and around the Eiffel Tower. It doesn’t get any better than that.