Mon voyage. Jour numéro quince. Beaune.

I rode, with all my stuff, back to Beaune for the Saturday market.

French people just love bread!

I got le petit déjeuner complete, for 5.5 euro.

I think this is the biggest market I have ever been to.  There are indoor areas, and outdoor areas which fill the streets of le centre ville.  I enjoyed the antique section but there is food and clothes and everything else you can imagine.

Vintage vineyard tools.

Truffles.

Shhhh.  The chickens are sleeping.

Salted, dry meat is understandable, I suppose, but gelatinous meats?  

They took two things I never eat and pressed them together into recognizable shapes.  

In 1443, after the Black Death, the chancellor of Bourgogne, Nicholas Rolin, and his wife, paid to build the Hôtel-Dieu de Hospices de Beaune.  He wanted to do something for his people so he built this refuge and hospital for the poor, who were cared for by nuns who lived here permanently.  

This was a fully functional hospital until 1971. 

The Pauper's Ward was the area for the poorest patients.  The chapel was attached to their room so they could attend mass from their beds.

There was an area for wealthy (paying) patients, but it wasn't as nice as this.  The hospice depended heavily on donations, and the auctioning of wine (which still supports the new hospital as they are Bourgogne's largest landowner of vineyards).

These are some of the tools used for surgery.  I don't have any surgery survival statistics but based on the pictures it cannot be high.

Not too far from the hospice is la collégiale Notre-Dame de Beaune, built in the 12th and 13th century.  I like the sepia tone stained glass; typically stained glass is bright and colorful.

Beaune was a walled city, but many sections of the wall that remain are still in good condition.  

I tasted wine (10 euro) at Cellier de la Cabiote.

The tasting was downstairs, in the wine cellar.

I learned even more about Bourgogne wine from the owner of this shop.  

I think crossed arms is a sign that the wine speaks for itself. 

He told a story about foreigners who came to try wine and kept talking about wanting to try Beaujolais wine (an area in between Lyon and Bourgogne) and he didn't understand why (because Bourgogne wine is better) so he finally gave them Beaujolais wine, and would you believe they liked it more?  He couldn't believe it.  

I knew if I said the wrong thing it would be shared with the next wine tasting group so I just appeared incredulous and kept my mouth shut.

All the wine here is much drier than what I am used to.  This is because their wines go through complete fermentation, meaning that there is no sugar left.  The sugar covers up other flavors in the wine making it less flavorful.  This particular light color wine had no affect on the flavor.  

They don't make what is called 'full bodied' wines here.  Those are wines made in the United States, where vineyards can control the taste of wine like a recipe.  They can add things to the soil and to the wine barrels, but in Bourgogne, as mentioned before, the only thing that affects the wine is soil and climate.  Full bodied wines tend to have a lot of up front flavor but lack lingering flavors.  

Or at least this is what I understand.  

Good wine improves your memory.