It gives me a cheap thrill to think that you’d start reading this article in order to discover—with admiration or contempt—which towns and cities in France limit their cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration laws. You might be imaging a bistro where lawless lefties confront national thugs. Or a wine region where baguette-wielding winegrowers are protecting grape-picking Syrians and Somalis against soldiers in riot gear. Would you then be inclined to visit such a place? Or would you immediately despise it?

How exciting to think that a travel article of mine could be read with admiration or contempt. But at the risk of disappointing anyone, and of ruining my chances of this piece launching a lengthy Reddit thread, let’s have another look at that title.

Villes Sanctuaires en France, the network in question, translates as Sanctuary Cities in France. The words align. But the concept does not. There are no trumped-up stand-offs in these towns and cities. French authorities have indeed stepped up operations to net undocumented migrants and would-be immigrants who’ve overstayed their visa, including a few gently reminded post-Brexit Brits. But round-ups, deportation and resistance are unlikely to occur in the peaceable destinations in France’s Villes Sanctuaires network. What makes them like-minded is a different kind of sanctuary.

Here, sanctuaire refers to a sanctuary in the sense of a shrine, “a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or deity,” to quote Merriam-Webster. Villes Sanctuaires en France therefore brings together villages, towns and cities in France that have shrines—Catholic, at that—that can be visited by the general public.

But wait, wait!

Before clicking away because candle-lighting pilgrims are less Instagrammable than baguette-wielding winegrowers, let me tell you one of my favorite aspects of travel in the secular nation in France: You can just as easily visit these sanctuaries and shrines for the heck, the fun, or the creepiness of it—I do—as you can out of a sense of spirituality, hope or devotion—others do. You can visit them, as I do, out of pure curiosity, out of an in interest in history or architecture, and to observe how people visit shrines. Or don’t visit the shrine at all when in these sanctuary cities, because the municipalities mentioned here also pay tribute to the gods of beauty, construction, gastronomy, wine, nature, even meaning, whatever that may mean. And here’s the best part: respectful as we must be when visiting a shrine that doesn’t speak to us spiritually, we don’t have to fake adoration, because blasphemy is not a crime in France. Praise be!

For the 18 municipalities within the Villes Sanctuaires network, the shrine or sanctuary is only half the picture. The site’s pious handlers work in tandem with local tourist officials, who also seek to promote other aspects of tourism within the municipality and in the surrounding region. Each member-municipality tells a different story in which the spiritual retreat or Catholic pilgrimage site or otherwise sanctified structure can lead to explorations regarding other heritage sites, gastronomy, wine, hiking, and nature—or vice versa.

France today is a secular state not a Christian or Catholic country. Its culture is a mixed bag that doesn’t stem from the history of a once-dominant religion. Yet the history of Christian, particularly Catholic, dominance in France has left major physical markers. Among them, a fascinating, photogenic and/or curious variety of heritage sites that the traveler is invited to encounter. Christianity’s religious and political history in France also includes a record of harms, dangers and abuses that are also worth examining. Thankfully, one is no longer forced to or expected to honor religiously inspired historical sites or the shrines of these sanctuary cities in specific ways, yet all are accessible to visitors whatever one’s views. By contrast, travelers are highly unlikely to visit a synagogue or mosque or temple if they don’t identify with the associated religion. Even travelers who do identify rarely visit those, whereas the vast majority of non-Catholics visitors to France will enter a church. Think Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.

Pilgrims and wayfarers, reverent and irreverent

For the purposes of this article, let’s use both portions of Merriam-Webster’s definition of a pilgrim: 1: one who journeys in foreign lands: wayfarer. 2: one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee.

The Villes Sanctuaires en France network was created in 1994, not as a direct promotional tool so much as a way for municipal tourist officials and overseers of shrines and sanctuaries to exchange information and learn from each other regarding the welcoming of religious and non-religious pilgrims. Only recently, in December 2025, did the association hold its first organized press workshop.

The event took place in Paris at the religious guest house attached to Sacré Coeur Basilica in Montmartre. Entrance to the hotel is from behind the basilica on a street named for the Chevalier de la Barre. The chevalier was a nobleman who was arrested then tortured and executed in 1766, at the age of 20, because he vandalized a wooden crucifix and failed to take his hat off when a religious procession went by, along with other impious, blasphemous acts. He immediately came to be seen as a secular martyr for the Enlightenment against the dangers of religious intolerance of Church and its bedmate State. Laws today sanction those who incite hate and violence, whether with respect to religion or other matters, while the Chevalier de la Barre remains a symbol of the right to irreverence with respect to something some consider sacred.

It isn’t at all ironic that the street near the Catholic holy site is named after the ill-fated young fellow. Instead, the street was baptized in honor of la Barre at a time when Sacré Coeur was under construction, during the political tug-of-war between Catholic and anticlerical forces in France. While the church rose with one vision of French society, the naming of the street and a statue to la Barre (located in what is now a dog park nearby) were intentional reminders of changing social priorities.

Together, the street and the church, the young nobleman and the devout pilgrim, the charming grey cobblestones and the massive white dome, coexist today as attractive reminders of how travelers—whatever kind of pilgrim they may be, whatever reverent or irreverent thoughts they may have—can experience, learn from and share it all.

The Sanctuary Cities network naturally plays the spiritual card in promoting tourism—unless it’s the tourist card in promoting spirituality—but these villages, towns and cities needn’t be seen as religious destinations alone. Whether you consider yourself a religious pilgrim or a wayfarer in a foreign land, or both at once, or sometimes one, sometimes another; whether you’re a theist (aficionado of a god that does or doesn’t act on human affairs) or a nontheist; whether you go in for blasphemy, heresy, dogma, or the smell of incense; whether you consider yourself spiritual or not; whether you wish that this article had been about deportation or resistance, now that you’ve come this far in, stay with me as I present the 18 current members of the network of Sanctuary Cities in France.

Municipalities in the Sanctuary Cities network vary from world-renown destinations to little-known village.

Among the most famous of these Sanctuary Cities is Lourdes, a town of 13,800 whose shrines attract 3 million visitors per year. Lourdes is primarily known as a spiritual destination relative to sainted Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879), who is said to have had 18 sightings of Mary from February to July 1858. Personally, I’ve little curiosity about Bernadette herself, but the spirit moves me to visit Lourdes soon so as to witness the Bernadette phenomenon up close and because Lourdes makes for an excellent starting point for exploration in the Pyrenees. There’s a visitable fortress just above the town. A funicular goes to the summit of the Pic du Jer. Further from town, another funicular goes to the even more impressive summit of the Pic du Midi, and there are numerous trails for hiking expeditions in the region. (Stay tuned for my 2026 Lourdes article.)

The photogenic tidal island of Mont Saint Michel is another major destination among these Sanctuary Cities.

While you don’t need to carry an all-knowing deity in your thoughts to be curious about the place, I encourage all travels to delve into the fascinating religious, architectural, technological and geopolitical history of the site, whether through reading or by hiring a specialized local guide, even if only to understand the successive eras of construction on the mount, culminating with the 13th-century portion known as “the Marvel.” I suspect that, unlike visitors to Lourdes, only a small percentage of the millions who come each year to Mont Saint Michel is aware that the mount maintains an active Catholic community—the men and women of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem. In the village and hard to spot among the souvenir shops and pricey omelets, the House of Pilgrims is a sanctuary for visitors who seek churchly hospitality.

Nevers, population 33,000, is located on the edge of two major travel and touring routes and receives relatively few foreign visitors. It’s on the inner edge Burgundy but without vineyards to draw wine travelers, and it’s the starting point for the 415-mile Loire by Bike route but cyclists largely pedal along paths further downstream. Religious pilgrims, however, know Nevers as the place to marvel at the body of Bernadette of Lourdes. Why aren’t her remains in Lourdes to greet the 3 million visitors there? Because Bernadette of Lourdes joined the Sisters of Charity and lived her short life as a nun in Nevers, where she died at the age of 35. Personally, I’m not planning a trip to Nevers just for that, though I do soon expect to take in the embalmed sight. I’ll also check out the Ducal Palace, have a peek in at the earthenware museum, find a potter to visit, and seek out a lively bistro or good restaurant. I enjoy the sense of discovery of exploring a bypassed town with an eclectic mix of offerings with an eye to encountering something or someone that sparks my interest. (Again, stay tuned for an upcoming article.)

Further south in Burgundy, Paray-le-Monial’s Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart) Basilica represents Romanesque architectural splendor to Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike. The former may specifically come to embrace their sense of the Sacred Heart. It was in this town that Margaret-Marie Alacoque claimed to have had three visitations from Jesus from 1673 to 1675, revealing his heart and its meaning to her on the third. The basilica therefore welcomes a significant influx of religious pilgrims. They may or may not also be gastronomic pilgrims, interested in Charolais beef. Charolais is common in much of France but the massive Charolais breed of cattle has its origins in this region and is named for the town of Charolles, eight miles east.

Spirituality needn’t be the main draw of a town or city in the sanctuary network. Wine can be the magnet, at least it is for me when I think of Cahors, which stands out in the wine world as the primary home for malbec in France. Whether you prefer your wine blended, blessed or 100% malbec, or don’t drink at all, no visitor venturing this deep into the country would skip the city’s key heritage sight: the 900-year-old Saint Etienne (Saint Stephen) Cathedral. Within the bowels of the cathedral awaits the Holy Headdress, venerated as the supposed head covering placed on Jesus as he was wrapped in a shroud for burial. Some will stand before it in awe and adoration. Others will raise an eyebrow, shake their head, and think “Oh, the things that people will believe.” But all visitors check it out. Beyond the malbec, the cathedral and the old town, it is the House of Pilgrims at the convent of Vaylats that gives Cahors sanctuary status and provides hospitality for hikers on the Way of Saint James of Compostela.

Sometimes the distinction between religious and non-religious pilgrim-tourists is blurred because they’re all following the same path. That’s the case at Rocamadour, one of the most visually stunning of these Villes Sanctuaires due to way the village hugs the canyon wall. Rocamodour is just over an hour’s drive north of Cahors or east of Sarlat. Visitors of all stripe climb the 216 steps to the sanctuary, then gaze upon the Black Virgin, a little statue with a large reputation.

Brive-la-Gaillarde, just over an hour’s drive north of Rocamadour, is better known for its rugby team than for its caves of Saint Anthony of Padua. But there it is, a sanctuary dedicated to the patron saint of all things lost and found.

Many trains to Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Zone of Normandy stop in the sanctuary town of Lisieux. Looking out the window as the train approaches the station, you see an immense basilica on the hill, its architecture inspired by Paris’s Sacré Coeur. The basilica honors Thérèse Martin (1873-1897), better known as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. I’m not suggesting that any but the most Teresian travelers take time from their brief tour of the Landing Zone to visit Lisieux, but it’s nice to know what you’re looking at as you pass by on the train.

Teresa’s sainthood marks much of the lower half of Normandy. Her devout parents, the canonized couple Louis and Zélie Martin, lived in Alençon, and their shrine there brings that town into the fold of Sanctuary Cities. Alençon is, however, better known in knitting circles for its lace-making history, as presented in its Lace Museum.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer’s annual pilgrimage in May attracts Romani from throughout Europe and tourists from far and wide into the Camargue Regional Park. Yet for most visitors, it’s the natural sensations of its marshes and bottomlands that set the Camargue apart along the Mediterranean.

Most foreign travelers would be surprised to learn that the Loire River, which evokes royal chateaux and easy-going biking along its east-west flow, starts deep in an off-track area of southern France and builds up strength on a northerly flow. Le Puy-en-Velay, population 19,000, in the Haute-Loire (Upper Loire) department, is the first city along the river’s course. Its geographical location and the presence of an ancient shrine to Mary earned it a major place on the map for medieval pilgrims arriving from the east and northeast on the Way of Saint James. Le Puy’s Notre-Dame Cathedral, its monumental statue of Notre-Dame de France, and its nearby volcanic chimney topped with a chapel round out its major Christian sights. But a foreign traveler is unlikely to come here unless interested in exploring the striking natural surroundings of this former volcanic region.

The sanctuary village of Souvigny also has a remarkable Romanesque church, along with the history of the first house of Bourbon—Bourbon as in future kings of France not corn whiskey. Souvigny is a 15-minute drive from the city of Moulins, home to the National Costume Center.

Then there are a handful of more obscure sanctuary villages and towns in the network: Lalouvesc, a remote village in Ardèche; Ars-sur-Formans, which sits quietly between the Beaujolais vineyards and Lyon; Cotignac in the backcountry of Provence; Sainte-Anne-d’Auray in Brittany; Vendeville near the northern tip of France, and La Salette, at nearly 6000 feet in the Alps. Non-religious pilgrims visiting the sanctuaries and shrines there will especially find the opportunity to commune with nature in various shapes and forms in the surrounding area.

See the official site for this network of sanctuary cities for more information about the shrines, sanctuaries, and points of interest of all kinds in and near these villages, towns and cities.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Traveler’s Guide to Sanctuary Cities in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

For several years now the Burgundy Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) has been pleading with requesting those in the wine trade and journalists to refer to the wines produced in the Burgundy region as Bourgogne wines.

Personally, when writing and speaking in English, I have trouble thinking of the wines made in the 74,000-acre patchwork of the Burgundy winegrowing region as anything but Burgundies, unless I’m drinking Chablis, which I think of as Chablis even though its vines are firmly rooted in Burgundy, or Beaujolais, which is the wine equivalent of a dog that wants to be both inside and out.

Nevertheless, I share with you the latest plea from Burgundy, dated March 16, 2021, before commenting further below:

In 2012, on the request of its elected representatives, the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) decided to stop translating the word “Bourgogne”, whatever the country. The aim is to help consumers find their way by ensuring coherence between our wine labels and the name of the region where the wines were created.

Bourgogne wines enjoy a strong global reputation with half of all Bourgogne wines produced being sold at export to around 170 territories. However, the farther the consumer lives from France, the more they struggle to understand our appellation system. They can get their bearings thanks to the wine’s origins, which is the name of this winegrowing region. It is therefore essential to use only one powerful name, a synonym for excellence and the respect for origins: Bourgogne.

Historically, Bourgogne is the only wine-producing region in France whose name is translated into different languages: “Burgundy” for English speakers, “Burgund” for Germans, “Borgogna” in Italian, to name but a few. This dates back to ancient times when the region was established as a crossroads for trade between the north and south and the east and west of Europe, as it still is today.

As such, Bourgogne wine producers and fans find themselves caught up in something of a paradox. The 200 million bottles of Bourgogne wine sold every year have the word “Bourgogne” on their label, either due to their appellation, which might be Bourgogne, Crémant de Bourgogne, Bourgogne Aligoté, and so on, or because they are a “Vin de Bourgogne” or a “Grand Vin de Bourgogne.” But consumers can find them amongst a range referred to Burgundy, Burgund, or Borgogna…

Confusing, to say the least.

“We felt it necessary to return to our original name, Bourgogne, in order to affirm our true identity, in a unified and collective way,” explains François Labet, President of the BIVB. “I’d say that our appellations are like our forenames, which makes Bourgogne our family name. A name that unites us all with our shared values embracing all the diversity of our wines. You don’t translate a family name!”

As they say in Beaujolais: Yes and no.

Yes, the historic region and former administrative region of Burgundy is called Bourgogne in French, as is the winegrowing portion of that region. But with all due to respect to this beautiful territory and the complexities of its mono-varietal wines and its terroirs and climats, it’s disingenuous to say that the wines made in the region that English-speakers call Burgundy should be called Bourgognes just as, say, the wines made in Champagne are called Champagnes. While Champagne the region and Champagne the wine are spelled the same way in English, Champagne’s pronunciations in English and French are as different from each other as Burgundy is from Bourgogne.

Would the BIVB also now have all non-French-speakers refer to the region itself as Bourgogne so as to complete the linguistic-territorial wine-pairing? If so, I look forward to their fight with tourist and government officials who are still keen on inviting English-speaking visitors to “Love France, Adore Burgundy,” to quote a slogan of the regional tourist board. Perhaps one day Burgundians will unify in imploring the world to call the region Bourgogne, but in a sense the region itself has somewhat faded on the map; Burgundy/Bourgogne no longer exists in the administrative way that it did when the BIVB first stopped translating Bourgogne. France’s territorial reform law of 2014 forced Burgundy/Bourgogne to marry its lesser-known (and also largely pinot-noir- and chardonnay-producing) neighbor to the east, creating Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

Of course, it isn’t for historic or administrative reasons that the BIVB requests that we refer to their wines as Bourgognes but for the very contemporary, exported-minded reason of distinguishing their wines on the international wine market. The effect of decades of abuse of the term burgundy to refer to Burgundy-style New-World wines still lingers in major export markets, so insisting on Bourgogne is a way of appearing inimitable as well as uniquely French. Champagne producers fought long, hard and for the most part successfully to uphold the proprietary distinctiveness of their evocative name. Bourgogne producers are now looking to assert their particularity by gently pushing professionals and consumers to adopt the singularity of their geographical indicator as written in French.

For now, calling the wines produced in Burgundy’s winegrowing region “Bourgognes” sounds a bit pretentious in English. Admittedly, positioning the wines of Burgundy as products of quality on the world market could well call for an affected pronunciation. The “bourgignon” in beef bourgignon (aka beef burgundy or boeuf bourgignon) gives beef stew braised in red wine added value to a rustic dish. (The true snob would feel the need to prove to guests that the red wine in the dish was a Burgundy/Bourgogne.) With time, “I’d like a good red (or white) Bourgogne, please” may sound less affected, just as we eventually cozied up to Beijing as a closer approximation in speech and spelling to the name of the Chinese capital than Peking, though we still call the imperial fowl with the crispy skin “Peking duck.” But I digress.

If producers in Burgundy want us to call their wines Bourgognes then I’m willing to make an effort—it’s no skin off my grape—but without promising anything. I won’t try to sway you one way or another, though. But here’s some wine advice: If you’re going to order a “Bourgogne,” it better be good one—otherwise an ordinary Burgundy will do.

© 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Bourgogne: A Burgundy by Any Other Name Would Be Just as Terroir appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

STOPPING BY VINES ON A SUNNY MORNING

Whose vines these are I think I know.
His cellar’s in the village though;
He will not mind this makeshift bar
To share with Claire an apéro*.

Our Giant bikes could take us far
Yet stop beside this great terroir
Between high woods and valley ring
Where ripen grapes pinot noir.

Our glasses make a little ping
To toast this Burgundy cycling.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and her laughing.

The vines are lovely, green and deep,
But we’ve got a schedule to keep,
Four miles to lunch though not too steep,
Four miles to lunch though not too steep.

*Apéro is an informal way of saying apéritif in French.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Biking in Burgundy: Stopping by Vines on a Sunny Morning (Video) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

So I’m pleased, upon my return from a masked excursion to the bakery and the cheese shop this afternoon, to find that the two agree to sit together to work on a new travel article. At my desk I hop onto the first train out of Paris, and I write:

Thirty minutes after setting out southeast from Paris by train, you’ll notice the flat landscape begin to flutter. Then swells form. And when those swells rise to hills—hills covered with colza, wheat and barley and crowned with woods, cattle grazing down below—that’s when you know that you’ve entered Burgundy.

But what’s my destination? Why head toward hills in the first place?

Before sitting at my desk I opened the refrigerator for some butter to spread on the warm baguette I’d just bought. Among the old photographs magneted to the refrigerator door is one taken in the backyard of the home where I grew up. It shows the hill that my siblings and I would roll down in summer and sled down in winter. Maybe that’s why I like rolling hills—they make me want to explore, yet their tranquil flow across the landscapes reassures me that I can find my way home. “Hill” is what we called the slight gradient in our backyard as children, though anyone over the age of seven would see instead a small slope to a row of trees on the edge of the property. On the opposite side of the trees lived a girl who was in my class. She was a volatile girl. Her name was…

Stop! The traveling mind, the one that resists confinement, won’t cooperate. That mind is quick to switch tracks to examine an old photograph or to look out the window or to give me a sudden urge to go running. That’s the mind that rattles around looking for exits. While my inward traveling mind tries to focus on the task at hand, my outward traveling mind is looking for the name of the girl next door from second grade. It’s telling me to call my sister to see if she remembers. It’s suggesting that I ask another neighbor from my childhood with whom I recently connected on Facebook.

No! Facebook is the death of cordial understanding. Don’t do it! Focus, demands the other mind, the one that’s satisfied sitting at the desk, riding a train to Burgundy. I reread my opening line hoping that its momentum will project me onward.

Thirty minutes after setting out southeast from Paris by train, you’ll notice the flat landscape begin to flutter. Then swells form. And when those swells rise to hills—hills covered with colza, wheat and barley and crowned with woods, cattle grazing down below—that’s when you know that you’ve entered Burgundy.

I unfold a map of Burgundy. On the train to where exactly?

But the outward traveling mind, averse to being bridled by lockdown, won’t let me study the map. I sense it rummaging around in nearly forgotten corners of my brain, unwilling to stay on the tracks to Burgundy, looking to latch onto anything that will pull me away from my text. Forget the girl then, let’s look for something else, it seems to say. And then it stumbles upon something, an open door. It elbows the mind that’s examining the map to let it know that it has found an exit.

It has found, or remembered, the existence of my storage space in the basement, my cave. Simultaneously both minds, the one that accepts confinement and the one that resists, come to the new cordial understanding that my sense of personal space can now be extended by a few square meters if I were to go down to the basement. I feel a shiver of liberation at the thought of visiting my cave in the cellar without having to justify myself to anyone. I haven’t been down there in several years. The train to Burgundy grounds to a halt, in the middle of nowhere.

The last time I went down to my storage space in the cellar was right after a team of thieves broke into it three or four years ago. They busted the padlocks on many of the storage spaces and stole all the wine. Well, they stole my wine, about three cases of it. I don’t know what they took from others because there are few direct exchanges between neighbors in this building other than to say “bonjour” or some expression of embarrassment when we cross paths at the entrance or in the winding staircase. My neighbors were social distancing before it became a health necessity. And when it did, many distanced themselves even further by fleeing Paris for the countryside or the coast in the illusion that, far from our building, far from Paris, lay true freedom, and by their exodus they could deny their confinement and negate their fears, as though, given a deadline to hole up, they’d suddenly realized that they’d been prisoners in Paris for so very long and needed to run while the guards weren’t looking, only to make themselves prisoners elsewhere.

I should thank them their intended escape. Now we don’t have to apologize for checking the mail or throwing out the garbage at the same time. Pardon, pardon, excusez-moi. Après vous, monsieur, madame. Fewer hands on the railings, the light switches and the door handles. No overflow of the trash bins by the end of the weekend. And the greatest gift of their absence: the silence. No footsteps from above, no crying baby from below, no barking dog, no arguing couple, no Airbnbers dragging their luggage up the stairs. No one to judge. Freedom. I wonder if this is what it would feel like to be the only person left alive.

No, there’s my 82-year-old neighbor, she’s still here. She’s the only neighbor with whom I have an actual conversation about anything other than a problem in the building. When they first announced corona confinement, I asked if she planned on going anywhere to ride it out. Her reply: “The last time I went away to ride something out was when I was 6 years old, after they rounded up my father, and my mother sent me to live in the Alps with a family I didn’t know—that’s enough for me.” I told her that if she ever needed anything and didn’t want to go out, I could get groceries for her. “Oh, I’m going out,” she said. “They stole my childhood, no one’s going to steal my old age.”

So I’m not going to complain that someone stole a few dozen bottles of wine that I had in my storage space, my cave. It wasn’t exceptional wine anyway. The temperature and the humidity level in the basement are ideal for wine, but I’m not one to buy bottles with the intention of letting tannins or acidity age gracefully in the dark. I’m not a collector.

I buy a few bottles here and there when I travel to wine regions in France, and winegrowers and tourist officials sometimes give me a bottle or two. Other than a bottle of champagne awaiting an occasion in the refrigerator, I keep bottles on a shelf in the kitchen. I’ll open one or two when I have guests over or take one to someone’s home when I’m invited. But I tend to receive and buy more than I use, so when two kitchen shelves were full I began putting the overflow into the basement.

After the theft I stopped taking bottles down there. I bought two wine stands that hold a dozen bottles each and placed them in the corner of the kitchen.

When not quarantined, I drink wine often, socially. But I don’t drink wine when I’m at home alone. I like sharing wine and the effects of wine. Drinking by myself does nothing for me other than make me want to have someone with whom to share the drink. So I haven’t been drinking wine during lockdown, just the occasional whiskey, calvados, cognac or rum late at night. “A little schnaaps,” as my Great-Aunt Helen would call her nightcap. She lived with us toward the end. “Don’t be stingy,” she’d say when she’d ask us to pour her a tumbler before going to bed. I told that to my friend Guillaume and he now repeats it when he comes over for a drink—he did before lockdown. For religious reasons my friend Achmed says that he doesn’t drink. However, since he isn’t religious, he sometimes will. But it’s Ramadan now, so he won’t.

As I’m thinking about my friends, I sense my resisting, exit-seeking mind standing there with its arms cross waiting for me to remember that it had found me a novel excursion: The cellar, it says, let’s go see what’s down there.

I put on my shoes and grab a flashlight. Work began in the stairwell shortly before lockdown, and with it paused the building feels like an abandoned construction site. Half the lights don’t work. The courtyard door doesn’t shut. Common pigeons are gathering near the garbage bins, as though plotting to take over. On the way to the bakery and the cheese shop earlier today I observed on the cobblestones the courting rituals of pigeons, which reminded me that I’ve forgotten my own. I watched wood pigeons feeding on the budding plane trees, beneath which their beige droppings are distinguishable from the white of their pedestrian cousins. Last night, when I went out for a walk, I saw a couple of ducks waddling across the street without looking either way. And I watched a group of rats playing 3-on-3 basketball around a trash bin. Couldn’t tell which side was winning. I guess they don’t keep score like we do. But living rats is a good sign, because dying rats means that the bubonic plague is here. So vive les rats! Just not so many.

As I suspected, the overhead light isn’t working in the basement. I turn on my flashlight. My storage space is at the end of the corridor—to the left, I remember, number 7. My broken padlock still lies on the ground. I never replaced it. Why bother? I don’t even remember what I ever used this storage space for.

I pull open the door and am reminded: There’s a bicycle in need of repair that I bought during the transportation strike of 1995; wobbly chairs from my previous apartment; a mattress wrapped in a tarp; a broken suitcase that I kept, thinking that I might use it if ever I moved again; the computer box from about 3 laptops ago—the one on which I was going to write a new guidebook. There they were: memories. There it was: junk. Memorable junk… Junk memories. My cave. My additional space. Could my outward traveling, resisting, exit-seeking mind do no better than to send me here? Instead of opening wings, all this journey to the basement has brought me is the promise of things long gone. But there’s no courage in nostalgia, only in throwing things away.

Then I see it: Near the ground there’s a bottle of wine that the thieves missed, or didn’t want. I dust it off and shine the light on it. Chablis premier cru, Vaillons, 2011, Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard.

Just then I hear a sound that seems to say, “Do it now… Do it now.”

I call out, “Hello?”

“Do it now. Do it now.”

“Is someone there? Il y a quelqu’un?”

“Do it now. Do it now.”

Bottle in hand, I run, stumbling against the wall as I rush up to the ground floor, and I keep running for the next two flights in the dusk of the stairwell. Then I slow down. I must have been frightened by the shadow of my own flashlight and the sounds of rats or pigeons. I laugh to myself—at myself. We all need a good, healthy scare every now and then. Several pigeons look drearily at me from outside the stairwell window, biding their time. I knock at the window but they merely step over a few inches as though they’ve just heard a cough.

As if by magic, the light in the stairwell goes on. Approaching the fourth floor I see that my neighbor has come out of her apartment. She must have turned on the light. She has a shopping bag in her hand. Each of us takes a respectful step back.

“Bonjour Madame,” I say.

“Bonjour Monsieur,” she says. “There aren’t many of us left.”

I don’t know which “us” she’s referring to.

I feel a need to justify being out. I hold up the bottle of wine and say, “I’m returning from the cellar, my cave.”

“To your health, then,” she says.

“To the health of us all,” I says, and doing so gives me idea. “Listen,” I say, “I don’t drink alone so maybe you… I can open the bottle and pour you a glass. You don’t have to drink it right here or with me. We have to keep a social distance, so you close your door and drink your glass whenever you want, but this way we’ll share it, in a sense, that is if you drink wine, I don’t know if you do.”

“That’s kind of you,” she says, without indicating her answer.

“Seriously. Chablis 2011, chardonnay.”

She says, “There’s no rush. It can wait.”

Then she wishes me a good end of the day, goes back inside her apartment, and closes the door as if she only came out to turn the light on for me.

I unlock my own door and go inside. I stand against the door. After a few seconds I hear my neighbor go out. I slip off my shoes. I wash my hands. I rinse off the bottle of wine, dry it and place it in the refrigerator. As I return to my living room / office I’m amused by the coincidence that Chablis is in the northwest corner of Burgundy. The train was somewhere near there before my excursion into the cellar. That’s just the momentum I need to get back on track. I reread my opening lines:

Thirty minutes after setting out southeast from Paris by train, you’ll notice the flat landscape begin to flutter. Then swells form. And when those swells rise to hills—hills covered with colza, wheat and barley and crowned with woods, cattle grazing down below—that’s when you know that you’ve entered Burgundy.

I look at my couch. To write or not to write, that is barely the question, for the answer is clear.

I lie down as though I’ve just unpacked my bags from a journey. I think about where I’ve been: I went down to the cellar because the resisting, exit-seeking mind had leaned against the unlocked door of my storage space; downstairs I heard a voice telling me to “do it now”; on the way back up an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor told me that there was no rush, it could wait.

What “it” could wait? What “it” should be done now?

My outward traveling mind and my inward traveling mind start to volley the question back and forth. Their game lulls me to sleep.

When I awaken the sun has dipped behind the buildings across the street. Early evening. How long was I asleep? Where was the sun before my nap? I fade in and out of consciousness. As a child I dreamed of leaping off the hill beside the house and flying, a silent figure over the neighborhood, defying gravity, a solitary victory over the world. But what now could be sweeter than submitting to gravity? It molds me to the couch. I abandon myself to the snug sensation that nothing matters but the comfort of being embraced by gravity. To nap: the great compromise of prisoners. To rest. Not to stand by the window to subjugate myself to alienation but to lie with myself, fading in and out of consciousness. Conscious just enough to feel this delicious gravity-induced satisfaction before sinking back out. Desiring nothing but this warm peace as the sun fades behind the opposite roof. Newtonian satisfaction: the nap: a timeless moment of gravity and of peace. Nothing else matters.

Nothing—but the stomach doesn’t know that. I’m hungry. I sit up. A wide yawn clears my head.

I go to the refrigerator. As I open it, I hear again what I heard in the basement: “Do it now. Do it now.” Immediately, I close it the refrigerator. I see the hill of my childhood home on the door. On the window railing a pigeon with his feather’s puffed is trying to seduce a female: who-rrou, who-rou. Slowly, I open the door again. “Do it now. Do it now.” I know that it’s the sound of the pigeon that I hear, still, the bottle of Chablis seems to be speaking to me. I take it out. “I need to be drunk, now,” it seems to say.

The bottle is telling me that, not me. I do not need to be drunk, and I do not want to be drunk. I want to be lucid as I follow this bottle wherever it will now lead me.

I set on the table the baguette and the cheese that I bought earlier. Two cheeses: a hard goat cheese from Maconnais, on the southern edge of Burgundy, and a soft goat cheese from Tarn, in southwest France.

I open the bottle of wine. I pour myself a glass. Unaccustomed to doing so alone, I imagine that I’m at a wine tasting, better yet a wine pairing.

I hold the glass up to the light, and to my surprise I now see myself driving from Paris to Chablis, in the northwest corner of Burgundy.

I swirl the wine. And I see a chapel surrounded by vineyard.

I inhale the wine. And I see ripe chardonnay grapes on the vines.

I take a mouthful, aerate it and swallow. I see a harvest underway.

Now I remember: I bought this bottle at the Jean-Marc Brocard vineyard during harvest time one September day several years ago. I was with a friend, though I can’t see his face. How strange. You’d think that, confined, you’d remember people, but for the most part you don’t. Your memory is vaguely peopled with people, but they’re ghosts with no distinguishing features, as least as far as the non-essential people are concerned. But who are the essential people? Maybe there are none—all ghosts? What more do I need or want than what I have right here? A nap, a baguette, cheese, a bottle of wine.

The streetlights have come on. The sky is twilight blue, the half-moon waxing or waning, I don’t know which.

I examine the bottle’s label: 2011. I remember visiting Burgundy that year. After the harvest, early autumn, when the grapes in this bottle were little more than juice. I wasn’t in Chablis that time, but further south, in the heart of the Burgundy winegrowing region, the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits growing area.

I pour myself another glass. I try it with the bread and cheese. A fine pairing, especially with the softer goat.

Burgundy. 2011. October. I’d taken the train to Beaune. I was picked up by a Jaguar, a Jag-u-ar, as the driver called it, a deep green Jag-u-ar. Yes, there was a driver, a woman, from company that gives tours in vintage cars. There were two passengers in the back, unknown to me now.

I get the Burgundy map from my desk and spread it on the table. The names of some villages on the map are highlighted in several colors, indicating different trips that I’d taken to the region: Pernard-Vergelesse, Chassagne-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Gevrey-Chambertin, Aloxe-Corton, Meursault, Marsannay, Orches, Nuit-Saint-Georges.

Bread, cheese, wine, and I now see myself standing by the entrance of Clos de Vougeot, the former abbey that’s now headquarters of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, the international wine order whose members vow to honor and spread the wine gospel of Burgundy. I stand looking at the abbey-chateau surrounded by vineyards, as though it were a promise land, and dreaming of one day being ritually inducted into the order by men in red and gold robes. Maybe that was from yet another trip, or another dream. It’s not easy to recall things past when your main struggle is projecting yourself into the future.

Wine, bread, cheese, wine.

In October 2011 I was in Burgundy. There was a driver, a woman, and two spectral passengers in the backseat of the Jag-u-ar. We drove into the vineyards. We tasted wines. In the evening I attended my first paulée. P-A-U-L-E accent aigu-E. Paulée, pronounced with a sharp “ay” at the end. But at times like this we revert back to our mother tongue, so I relax my throat, unsharpen the é, and dictate into my phone:

In 2011, in October, in Burgundy, I went to a paulee. A paulee is the opposite of social distancing. It’s bacchanalian, as in Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. Traditionally, it was a celebration in Burgundy when a winegrower would honor the back-breaking work of his grape pickers by bringing out and sharing his wine with them to celebrate the end of the grape harvest. The tradition fell by the wayside with the decimation of the vineyards toward the end of the 19th century and was revived in the 1920s, after the First World War and the Influenza Pandemic known as the Spanish Flu had killed countless millions of people around the world. The best known paulee soon became and still is the Paulée de Meursault, the Meursault Paulee—Meursault is a famous winegrowing village in Burgundy (as well as the name of the narrator in Camus’ The Stranger, L’Etranger). Maybe cut that line. Or keep it in—Aujourd’hui, mama est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas—for the French majors among my readership. Where was I?

I stop dictating and pour myself more wine. I eat some bread and cheese. I continue:

The Meursault Paulee is a wine gala with great food that closes the annual Hospices de Beaune wine auction which takes place on the third weekend in November. There are a number of other major paulees in Burgundy in the fall. Internationally there are paulees, often with respect to Burgundy wines. (Or Bourgogne wines, as the regional wine board wants them to be called.) Places in the Loire Valley also now have paulees with their own wines, though a paulee is traditionally associated with Burgundy (Bourgogne).

I stop again. I’m pleased with the balance of my coincidental wine pairing: soft goat cheese and Chablis premier cru Vaillons. Or is any of this coincidental?

2011, Burgundy, October, the night of the Jag-u-ar, I attended a paulee, somewhere near Beaune. In a chateau? There were hundreds of people in the vast banquet hall. I dictate:

A paulee is the Burgundy version of a communal pot-luck dinner where most people bring wine instead of casseroles and pies and where the chefs, at least at the paulee that I attended, have Michelin stars associated with their names and are accompanied by enough sous-chefs to feed a battalion. Great food. But the wine’s the thing. When Burgundy wine producers, wine merchants and wine touring professionals invite you to a BYOB where they’re doing the BYOing, you know that you’re in for a treat. There was no tasting protocol to follow, as I recall. No spittoons. This was purely a sip-and-swallow event. We sat at round banquet tables for 8 or 10 people. Producers, distributors, sellers, friends of producers, distributors, sellers, hotel owners, tour organizers. They’d brought wine with which they had an intimate relationship. That’s what I remember most, the spirit of sharing and generosity by guests bringing a part of themselves; everyone was somehow related to the wine and the terroir, or the climats as they call their vineyard parcels in Burgundy. Six to eight bottles on each table. At least 30 different wines available in the room. And if you listened carefully you could hear each of those bottles saying, “Now. Do it now. I have to be drunk now.”

I laugh at that thought as I pour myself another glass.

Once we tasted the bottles on our own table at the paulee, we set out on collective or individual missions for bottles at other tables. We then exchanged or begged or stole a pour or a bottle from a neighbor, then from their neighbors, then from the neighbors’ neighbors’ neighbors, spreading good cheer along the way like a harmless coronavirus party.

I stop recording and try to remember who was at my table. No one particular comes to mind. Who invited me to that paulee?

From that sharing of things with which one has a personal connection, there develops a joyful, communal atmosphere. As reserved and uptight as the French can be in social settings, it didn’t take long at the paulee for everyone to stand up and do a Burgundy version of the macarena. They waved around white napkins while singing “Je suis fier d’être Bourgignon.” (I’m proud to be a Burgundian.) I stood up with them and sang that I was proud to know a Burgundian.

Yet for the life of me I can’t remember who the Burgundian was that invited me, or sat at my table, or drove me back to the hotel.

I carry my glass to the bookshelf in the living room / office and take down my Burgundy file box. I find nothing in it about the people I was with that weekend. But here’s the tasting list from the paulee of October 2011! On it I noted at the time what wines I’d liked. Apparently, I had a taste for the Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2006 Domaine Michel Picard among the whites. And among the reds the Corton Grand Cru 2007 Domaine Rapet struck my fancy, as did the Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 2006 Domaine Bertagna.

I won’t say that everyone was wasted, because wine folk don’t like the term wasted. Let’s just say that if the two words “social distancing” are saving us now, the two words that saved us then were “designated driver.”

I remember that fraternal feeling of the paulee, that sense that, good harvest or bad harvest, we were in this together. We were sharing something that we all felt concerned by and connected to. We had all brought something to the table.

But what had I brought to the paulee? How was I connected? Did I know anyone there? Did I speak with anyone? What was I doing there? Who invited me?

I look outside. The street is silent. A man walks a dog. No neighbors can be heard. A few birds call.

I sit at my desk with my glass of wine. It feels like I’m at the end of my article yet I’ve only written three lines: Thirty minutes after setting out southeast from Paris by train, you’ll notice the flat landscape begin to flutter. Then swells form. And when those swells rise to hills—hills covered with colza, wheat and barley and crowned with woods, cattle grazing down below—that’s when you know that you’ve entered Burgundy.

Again, I sense the outward traveling, resisting, exit-seeking mind calling for attention, turning me away from the text. This time it’s drawing me back into the kitchen, to the corner, where bottles of wine accumulate while awaiting an occasion.

Behind the cereal, the rice, the pasta, the onions, the aluminum foil, the plastic wrap and the paper towels, beneath a black table cloth, there are two wine racks with a dozen slots each, nearly full of bottles. I pick them up one by one and read the labels. Each one speaks of a trip I’ve taken or of someone I know or have known: a Bordeaux Clarendelle that was a gift from the producer the day after the fire at Notre-Dame; a Côtes-de-Meuse from Domaine de Muzy, where I stopped at between WWI sites in northeast France; a Cour-Cheverny, bought after a picnic at Domaine des Huards in the Loire Valley with Achmed and Guillaume; a Vin de Merde (it’s real name) that Pierre-Yves brought to dinner one evening having received it himself second hand; a Champagne G. Tribaut from a trip last fall to Hautvillers with Stephanie, which I now remember was also the name of the girl next door from second grade.

Hidden behind the wine racks, I discover other bottles that pre-dated the robbery, bottles that I must have intended to take into the basement but never did: a Châteauneuf-du-Pape Beaurenard 2011, a remnant of several days in Provence in 2013; two Saint Emilion Grands Crus, Château Gaudet 2011 and Château Soutard 2011, from a day in Saint Emilion on my way to Rauzan to visit Sophie and Jean-Stéphane; a forgotten Champagne Krug 2000 that Jean-Pierre brought for my birthday dinner some years ago. Each has a story to tell.

No—my two minds shout in unison—each has a story to share. Together they’ve come up with a plan: When friends feel comfortable gathering again, I’m going to have a paulee.

That’s it! Everyone is going to bring a bottle with which they have a personal connection, a story to share. I’ll invite Madame my neighbor. And Guillaume will come, he’s a great storyteller. And Achmed will be here, he’ll share. I’ll invite Scott, with whom I visited Chablis. And Véronique—that’s who invited me to the paulee in Burgundy! And the baker, who told me today that he’s just became a father. And the cheesemonger who sold me that delicious creamy goat cheese.

And you? Will you come? Get your bottle ready because you’re invited to a paulee. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to have a paulee. I would do it now, but it can wait. For now.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

Share your own bottle story in the comments section below in 300 words or less.

The post Burgundy Memories: The Bottle in the Basement appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Meanwhile, here in France, Americans celebrating Thanksgiving typically, even traditionally, enjoy their fresh French turkey with some fine French terroir in their selection of wine—make that wines, plural, since a long meal calls for more than one. So while the information below will especially serve Americans celebrating in France, don’t be afraid to try this back in the homeland or elsewhere abroad on this or any turkey day.

There are a multitude of approaches to turkey, from roasting to smoking to frying, and plenty of stuffing recipes that, when combined, can influence your wine pairing. But on average the range of French pinot noirs, with its great and subtle variety from light to medium to full body, lends itself to roast turkey pairing. Thoughts of pinot noir then leads us primarily to the wines of Burgundy and Champagne (with all due respect to Alsace and to the Loire Valley’s Sancerre and Manetou-Salon).

So I asked the pros promoting the wines of Champagne and Burgundy what they recommended to accompany our traditional American meal.

The Champagne Bureau USA was well-prepared for the question and supplied the following chart:

The Burgundy Wine Bureau (BIVB) put some thought to the question and sent the following suggestions:

As an aperitif, Burgundy’s bubbly, Crémant de Bourgogne, either a blanc de blancs for its lightness and fitness or a blanc de noirs for a more complex opening to your thankful gathering.

For your stuffed turkey with cranberry sauce, something in the order of a Morey-Saint-Denis, a Mercurey, a Savigny-les-Beaune Premier Cru or a Ladoix.

Then, come dessert, to accompany your pumpkin pie or your pecan pie (as long as they aren’t overwhelmingly sweet), a white (chardonnay) Meurault or Marsannay.

So many ways to give thanks.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

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Slavery is a crime against humanity. So decreed France in 2001, making it the first country to do so. What may seem to be a solely symbolic decree, akin to declaring the Jurassic era over, is actually a way of condemning the country’s own history with respect to slavery, something not every country is willing to do.

The law was adopted by Parliament on May 10, which was then decreed the National Day of Commemoration with respect to slavery. In particular, it recognizes France’s involvement in slavery and the slave trade for over 350 years until the definitive abolition of slavery in France and its colonies on law April 27, 1848. The abolition law, passed under the period known as the Second Republic, resulted in the liberation of 250,000 people from slavery.

Slavery had been outlawed in continental France since 1315, but with conquest of the Americas and European incursions into black Africa, France by the early 16th century become a full partner in the triangular slave trade between Africa, Europe and the Americas. Estimates vary as to the total number of Africans uprooted and enslaved in the Americas with European involvement (primarily Portugal, Spain, England, Holland, France) from the 15th to the 19th centuries, with 12-15 million Africans being the figure used along the Route. (Black slavery to countries north of the Sahara was long present, if on a much smaller scale, before Europeans arrived.)

While men, women and children were not brought as slaves to the transcontinental ports of Nantes and Bordeaux, certain French shipping companies actively participated in their transport and profited from slavery in the colonies.

Origins of the Abolition of Slavery Route

In the wake of the national decree declaring slavery and the slave trade crimes against humanity, a number of sites in eastern France and in Switzerland joined together in a thematic constellation under the heading the Abolition of Slavery Route.

Launched in 2004 with support from the UN and UNESCO, the Abolition of Slavery Route appears as a haphazard route on the map. Unlike other historic routes in France (e.g. wine, pastel, castle, abbey, Impressionists or Napoleon routes), there is no true unity of place to these sites , though historically the anti-slavery movement in France did develop in its eastern provinces and their connection with Switzerland.

Burgundy – Franche-Comté

Rare is the traveler who will actually follow the route from start to finish. This article concerns three sites on that route in Burgundy – Franche-Comté, a composite administrative region, comprised of evocative Burgundy on for its west portion and little-known Franche-Comté for its east portion. While the thirsty traveler will know of Burgundy first through wine, hungry traveler might initially encounter Franche-Comté through comté, which is among the most familiar raw-milk (cow) hard-pressed cheeses in France, and through poulet de Bresse, which is among the country’s top-quality chickens.

Each of the three major sites in Burgundy – Franche-Comté honor abolition presents a different facet of efforts between 1789 and 1848 to abolish slavery .

The House of Negritude and Human Rights

While the year 1848 marks France’s complete refusal of slavery in its territories, it was in the 1780s that significant anti-slavery movements began making their voices heard in France, as well as in Great Britain and the United States. On March 19, 1789, four months before the storming of the Bastille, citizens in the village of Champagney (Haute-Saône) drew up a charter of grievances (photo above) in which they wrote to King Louis XVI, “The inhabitants and community of Champagney cannot think of the ills being suffered by Negroes in the colonies, (…) without feeling a stabbing pain in their hearts.”

That expression of solidarity earns Champagney its place on the Abolition of Slavery Route. Here, in what is now a small town with a population of 3600, the House of Negritude and Human Rights (La Maison de la Negritude et des Droits de l’Homme) presents a reproduction of a slave ship and numerous African and Haitian objects that illustrate negritude (or the values of black civilizations around the world).

Château de Joux, the fortress prison of Toussaint Louverture

During the French Revolution, in 1792, the National Assembly granted full rights of citizenship to people of color. As early as 1794, the young republic appeared to be on its way to definitively abolishing slavery in its colonies when it promulgated a law to that effect. (It was at around this period that the term “crime against humanity” was first used.) However, that early French version of our Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t fully applied in all of France’s overseas territories in the ensuing years, and Napoleon Bonaparte, in his pre-Emperor role of First Consul, turned the country’s back on that decree. In 1802 he reinstate the legality of black slavery and the slave trade in colonies where former slaves weren’t yet all free.

Shortly thereafter, Toussaint Louverture (~1743-1803), an Afro-Caribbean who had become governor of the island of Santo Domingo (present day Haiti) and leader of the rebellion against French rule at the time Bonaparte’s decree, was jailed and brought to the continent to be imprisoned in the Chateau de Joux. Louverture was born into slavery, was a freed and become a slave-owner himself in his 30s before climbing the military and political ladder through alliances with various sides over through the 1790s. The fortress at La Cluse et Mijoux (Doubs), which served as a state prison from 1690 to 1815, stands on the summit of a 3300-foot rocky outcrop guarding the entry to the water gap that is a natural passageway into Switzerland.

Louverture died a few months after his incarceration here. In 1804, within a year of his death, Haiti became a sovereign country, though bloodshed on the island would continue. His cell, situated on the ground floor of the fortress dungeon, can be visited (see photo at top of article).

The Anne-Marie Javouhey House

The same revolutionary body that would free slaves was also wary of the desire of the Catholic Church to reassert its dominance in the lives of the citizens of France. Born in Chamblanc in 1779, Anne-Marie Javouhey therefore grew into the faith of her ancestors in relative secrecy during her teenage years before taking her vows. Religious, as well as racial, reasons had often been given for allowing slavery from Africa. For Sister Javouhey and others, however, religion was instead a reason to oppose slavery, and former slaves should be converted to Christianity.

In 1805 she founded a religious congregation that would eventually take on the name Saint Joseph de Cluny, with a particular interest in education. The order, which still exists, became the first order of female missionaries. Beginning in 1817 and periodically for the next 25 years, Javouhey personally led a group of sisters on missions around the world, where they bore witness to the black slave trade. “Negroes are not deaf to the voice of morality nor to that of civilization,” she wrote to the governor of Guyana; “children of God, they are men just like us.” In 1835 Javouhey and her group obtained the right to oversee the education and conversion of 500 slaves. The first emancipations came in 1838 when she obtained the freedom of 149 who had been shipped to Mana, Guyana. Others would follow.

In addition to the family home of Anne-Marie Javouhey and a museum space located in the school that currently bears her name, the Abolition of Slavery Route sites in Chamblanc (Côte d’Or) include a remembrance forest, made up of 150 trees each named after one of the first freed African slaves.

Further information

The route continues in northeastern France and into Switzerland. For further information in French about the Abolitions of Slavery Route see its official website. The official tourism website of the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region can be found here in English. 

Lodging 

Near La Cluse et Mijoux (Château de Joux): The town of Pontarlier,  several miles to one side of the fortress, has the 3-star Hotel Saint-Pierre and the B&B La Maison d’A Côté. Several miles to the other side and a half-mile from the Swiss border, Le Tillau is a chalet-like 11-room hotel and restaurant in the Jura Mountains.

Champagney: By Napoleon’s time already Champagney was known for its coal mines rather than for its point of view on slavery. The mid-19th-century manor of the director of coal mines in the area (which closed in 1958) is now the B&B Château de la Houillère. Just outside of Champagney, in the village of Ronchamp, the B&B La Maison du Parc also occupies a charming 19th-century mansion.

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From time to time a winegrowing area will flex its viney muscle and, claiming distinctiveness, seek to untether itself from broader semi-generic wines in a region.

Vézelay, a Burgundy village otherwise known as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the latest to make a name for itself. In the fall of 2017 Vezelay was officially granted permission to call its dry chardonnays “Vézelay” rather than the broader “Bourgogne [Burgundy] Vézelay.” It’s a subtle but proud distinction that allows its producers to affirm and refine their wines’ particularity compared with other white burgundies.

In France, permission to bear a village label comes from the INAO, the National Institute of Appellations of Origin, which is responsible for the implementation of policy on official signs of identification of the origin and quality of agricultural and food products.

From now on, Vézelay, like Twiggy, Cher, Madonna, Beyoncé, Moby, Ice-T, Oprah and Voltaire, needs no other qualifier to its name to make a statement.

The last Burgundy village to rise to appellation (AOC) status was Irancy, in 1999, for its rough-edged pinot noir produced 22 miles north of Vézelay. Now it’s the turn for chardonnay, the other illustrious grape of Burgundy wines, to get honored as Vezelay comes of age and out from the long shadow of white Burgundy.

The first AOC Vezelay bottles will appear on wine shop shelves in the fall of 2018. That’s just in time for the best launch party that a Burgundy village can have, as Vézelay will host the region’s annual Saint Vincent Tournante wine festival over the weekend of January 26 and 27, 2019.

Each year the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, the venerable and folkloric wine fraternity of Burgundy wine enthusiasts (and of much else Burgundy), selects a different Burgundy wine village to host the event. That village then shares the fermented fruit of its labor in honor of Vincent, a patron saint of winegrowers. Vézelay was awarded the 2019 slot when Aloxe-Corton and Pernand-Vergelesses, which historically host the event together, backed out due to a series of small harvests that left them low on party stock. January may not be the most beautiful time for a stroll in the vineyards, but Saint Vincent Tournante is one of France’s premier wine parades. (The January 2020 event will likely be held in Gevrey-Chambertin, the Côte de Nuits village whose grand cru reputation needs no introduction to fans of French wines and to visitors to Burgundy.)

Vezelay Abbey

Its hosting of Saint Vincent Tournante makes 2019 a double reason for Vézelay pride since that also marks the 40th anniversary of the listing of its 12th-century basilica and its dramatic hilltop presence as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Benedictine abbey of Vézelay was founded in the 9th century and eventually acquired the supposed relics of Saint Mary Magdalene, leading to the church being rededicated in her name in the 11th century. Miracles were attributed to the relics, pilgrims flocked in increasing numbers, and the church became an important point of departure along Saint James’s Way. The church, rebuilt following a deadly fire in 1120, is “a masterpiece of Burgundian Romanesque art and architecture,” to quote the UNESCO listing. The perfect setting, then, for Saint Bernard to preach the Second Crusade in 1146 and for Richard the Lion-Hearted and Philip II Augustus to set off in bromance for the Third Crusade in 1190.

With all that communion going on, as well as the thirst of the Court of Burgundy, there was much need for wine, and vineyards flourished around medieval Vézelay.

(The Vezelay Tourist Office provides information about visiting the abbey, the village and the surrounding villages and vineyards, including Vezelay wine tasting.)

The appellation and the terroir

But Vézelay’s long winemaking history, dating to Roman times, dried up with the phylloxera epidemic that hit the area in 1884 and soon decimated the vines. Several acres of vines were later replanted for local consumption, but it wasn’t until the 1970s, when a handful of producers, with support from some elected officials, made a concerted effort to relaunch local wine production with the pinot noir and especially chardonnay varietals that are so at home in Burgundy. Their efforts gradually bore fruit, and in 1988 the area’s chardonnay production was authorized to bear the Bougogne/Burgundy appellation. In 1997 that gave way to the appellation Bourgogne Vezelay. Consecration has now come with the AOC Vezelay designation, which recognizes the distinctiveness of these chardonnays compared with others in the region.

Twenty-five producers, including ten associated with a cooperative, currently work 70 hectares (173 acres) of chardonnay vines. That leaves plenty of room for growth since the new appellation delimits a zone covering 256 hectares (633 acres).

AOC Vézelay defines a dry white wine produced from the chardonnay B varietal. In granting it an appellation in its own right, INAO recognizes it as a well-defined and independent geographical entity within Burgundy. The outline of the Vézelay winegrowing zone lies in the Cure Valley within the municipalities of Asquins, Saint-Père, Tharoiseau and Vézelay in Burgundy’s Yonne department or subregion. Its clayey marly limestone soils are situated on southern and southeastern slopes on the edge Morvan National Regional Park and distinct from Burgundy’s Chabliens/Auxerrois vineyards, also in Yonne, to the north and its Côte d’Or vineyards to the southeast.

Having a village appellation does not mean that a wine is exceptional but rather that it is distinct from neighboring wines and follows certain specifications. Consequently, it presents a specificity in the marketplace that is up to its producers and distributors to exploit. In and of itself, it is not a gauge of quality with respect non-village wines, though a village appellation is presumably not plonk. Of course there is still room for varying tastes and qualities within the production area.

Vézelay, or at least the Bourgogne Vézelay currently on the market, might best be considered a fresh, unpretentious dry aperitif with floral, citrus and mineral notes. You can always keep pouring it beyond the aperitif to accompany a starter, if you like, or to finish with some soft cow’s milk cheese. See AOC Vézelay’s description by the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB).

Bourgogne Vézelay can already be found in some U.S. and British wine markets, so AOC Vézelay will certainly follow suit and perhaps grow as the vineyards and their “brand” reputation do. In France, bottles of Bourgogne Vézelay sell in shops in the 10-15€ range for the most part. The new village appellation and accompanying marketing efforts may well lift prices. (Keep in mind, we are not in Chablis Grand Cru territory here.)

For a lesson in English of the geography of Burgundy appellations (pre-AOC Vezelay), south to north, see this video from the Bourgogne Wine Board.

Vezelay in Montmartre

A group of Vézelay winegrowers recently came to Paris to speak of the new appellation at an event at the La Bonne Franquette, a restaurant located just up the street the vineyard of Montmartre. La Bonne Franquette is also an institution of Montmartre folklore, hence the presence of President of the Republic of Montmartre in the photo below. He is seen holding a bottle of Montmartre wine, as is Patrick Frashboud, La Bonne Franquette’s owner. The other bottles held are among the last of the Bourgogne Vézelay chardonnay production.

Left to right, Patrick Fracheboud, owner of La Bonne Franquette; Matthieu Woillez, Domaine La Croix Montjoie; Valentin Montanet, Domaine La Cadette; Elise Villiers, Domaine Elise Villiers; Delphine Dupont, Domaine Dupont; Patrick Bringer, Domaine Les Faverelle; Alain Coquard, President of the Republic of Montmartre; Brigitte Guéret, Cave Henry de Vézelay, the Vezelay wine cooperative; Christine Ranunkel, whose father was an elected official instrumental in pushing for the replanting the vineyards around Vezelay in the 1960s and 70s; Isabelle Garnier, Cave Henry de Vézelay.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

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The oppidum (or major settlement) of Alesia—situated on the heights of the commune of Alise-Sainte-Reine, 40 miles northwest of Dijon—has been the subject of nearly uninterrupted archeological digs since the mid-19th century and has unearthed tangible proof that as indeed the site of the ultimate battle fought by a coalition of Celtic tribes to liberate Gaul from the Roman conquest of the vast territory beyond the northeastern side of the Alps.

The oppodium of Alesia continued to exist as a town until well after the Roman conquest before finally being abandoned in the 5th century, so archeological digs have brought forth artifacts throughout the Gallo-Roman period. Nevertheless, it is the site’s evidence of the siege of 52 B.C. and the defeat of Vercingetorix that are the great treasure of this vast archeological site.

Vercingetorix, an Averni chieftan at the head of a disparate coalition of 80,000 Gaulish warriors, fell back to Alesia as the Romans under Julius Caesar closed in. Caught in a vice of Roman camps, including 10 to 12 legions of 4,500 men each, supported a Germanic cavalry, Vercingetorix awaited reinforcements that would arrive too late and too few. He chose to surrender in order to save his men, as is told to us in Caesar’s own first-hand testimony in his “Commentaries on the Gallic War” (Commentarii de Bello Gallico).

The Siege of Alesia probably lasted two months beginning at the end of August, leaving archeologists to uncover miles of fortifications along with hundreds of pieces of Gaulish money that help identify those involved in the battle and a fantastic military arsenal including helmets, shields, swords, daggers, catapult balls, etc.

Though the digs carried out during the reign of Napoleon III (1872-1870) were long discredited because they were carried out to satisfy the emperor’s own passion for history and archeology, their documentary value is of utmost importance. Research undertaken since 1905 and accelerated since 1990 with the help of aerial photography has revealed the outline of double fortifications constructed around the oppidum by Julius Caesar. This evidence confirms that the Battle of Alesia did indeed take place in Burgundy on Mount Auxois, thereby dismissing the arguments of other claimants, in particular Alaise in the region of Franche-Comté to the east of Burgundy. Nevertheless, more than two thousand years after the battle, the site has yet to reveal all of its secrets.

Until 2011, only the colossal and fanciful statue of Vercingetorix made of copper sheet by Aimé Millet and erected in 1865 stood as an emblem at the site.

But now, since spring 2012, the MuséoParc Alésia allows visitors to dive into the heart of the battle.

The museum-park consists of a reconstitution of Roman fortifications—where reenactments and activities for all ages take place—and an “interpretation center,” a vast circular building representing the encircling of the Gauls by the Romans. The center, designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi, is a notable building of glass and concrete covered with a wooden “hairnet” (unfortunately, it misses the mark on sound insulation).

It houses a circuit outlining the historical context, the profiles of the two protagonists and the main stages in the battle. Visitors also discover remnants of the Gallo-Roman presence in the area, including clothing accessories, fibulae (brooches) of iron and bronze, pieces of helmets, shoe nails, amphorae, grindstones, horse bones, a rare fragment of a Roman goatskin tent, and other items.

A wider and more detailed view of the Gallo-Roman era will be on display when the Archeological Museum opens nearby in 2016.

© 2012, Catherine Rigollet. Translation and adaptation by Gary Lee Kraut

MuséoParc Alésia – 21150 Alise-Sainte-Reine. Tel. 03 80 96 96 23. See website for opening times and entrance fees.

The Laumes-Alésia train station is just a mile from the MuseoParc Alésia, but you’ll likely want a car to also Alesia along with other sites in the area. Bikers who don’t mind a few hills will also enjoy pedaling through this area within a radius of 8 miles in any direction.

Visitors can continue to follow in the footsteps of Gauls and Romans at three other sites in Burgundy:

– The Châtillon-sur-Seine Museum,  whose centerpiece is the Treaure of Vix, found in a Celtic tomb;

– The archeological site and museum of Bibracte;

– Roman remnants at Autun, a town founded during the reign of Emperor Augustus as Augustodunum.

Catherine Rigollet is the founding editor of L’Agora des Arts, a website dedicated to the arts. As a journalist she worked for Le Point, L’Express, Le Figaro Eco and the Les Echos group before taking over the culture and exhibitions section of Air France Magazine. She is the author of a dozen books about art, history, heritage and social issues including Les Conquérantes (Nil Editions, 1996) and Les Francs Maçons (JC Lattès 1989).

This article first appeared in French in L’Agora des Arts (specifically this page) and has been translated and adapted, with permission, for France Revisited by Gary Lee Kraut.

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Known as the TGV Rhine-Rhone because it navigates between the two rivers, the new tracks specifically connect Dijon (Burgundy) with Mulhouse (Alsace), further linking two other high-speed lines: Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Mediterranean.

In addition to quickening inter-regional and international train travel, the three different branches—eastern, western and southern—also form an attractive come-hither for travelers looking to expand their horizons in France. Trip-planners, whether DIY or professional, can now take advantage of the more direct way in which Alsace (and Germany beyond) is now linked to the Mediterranean. The eastern branch links Alsace and Dijon via Belfort-Montbéliard and Besancon (Franche-Comté), little-known regions worth exploring. For those living in the Paris regions, these regions are now more accessible for weekend getaways.

Trips are now shortened by 90 minutes between Mulhouse and Marseille, as well as between Dijon and Strasbourg. Dijon is now only an hour and 25 minutes from Basel, Switzerland, and Lyon is just under five hours from Frankfurt.

Domestic trains feature first- and second-class seating, an organic and fair-trade bar menu, and an on-board bike storage area. International routes will include new Euro Duplex trains.

All aboard!

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This is especially true in my two-wheeled explorations in and around the Morvan Regional Natural Park, a vast, lightly populated, protected green zone covering 1100 square miles in the center of Burgundy that’s exceptional for cycling, farms, forestry and history.

Celts and Romans

Three thousand years ago, during the Bronze Age, the area was inhabited by the Celts. Early merchants carried tin from Cornwall to the Mediterranean regions using the valleys of the Seine and Saône, and through Alsace, southern Germany and the Danube valley.

Around 100 B.C., the control of these routes allowed the Eduan tribe of Celts to establish power over most of what is present-day Burgundy. Their center of authority was Bibracte, an oppidum (or fortified settlement) at Mont Beuvray in the southern Morvan. That’s where the united Celtic tribes elected Vercingétorix chief to repel the Roman army under Caesar. The name Vercingétorix fills Frenchmen with pride since he was a homegrown hero brave enough to go up against an invader. He was nevertheless soon defeated.

From his camp at Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, Julius Caesar directed the final defeat of Vercingétorix and the Celtic tribes at Alesia, at the top of a nearby hill, in 52 B.C.

Caesar wrote that the Celts fought naked, perhaps as a way of saying that the men they set out to defeat were less than human, but in these warrior tribes men and women wore full armor, including chiefs and elders, who fought side by side on small horses. The Celts had a flourishing civilization. In the second and first centuries B.C. men shaved with obsidian razors, made fine jewelry, enjoyed wild boar, and imported oil and wine from Italy. These were tall people and had long blond hair. The hair color may have come from washing in a lye solution to rid their scalps of various critters.

Archeologists estimate that prior to the Celts’ conquest by Julius Caesar, traders brought 40 million amphorae (two-handled pottery jugs used to transport liquids such as wine and oil) into Gaul. After Caesar’s conquest, there was a decrease in the wine traffic as, instead of wine that easily turned to vinegar en route, Romans brought vines and their winemaking methods to eastern Burgundy.

Cycling around the Morvan has allowed me to acquire a sense of how Celts and Romans might have lived 20 centuries ago. In spite of small paved roads (a few following old Roman roads) allowing easy access, the rocky hills are covered with square mile after square mile of mature, dark forests. There are probably more villages now, but fewer permanent inhabitants.

From Forest to Wood for Paris

By fits and starts through the Middle Ages France became an increasingly powerful and centralized kingdom as far as most Parisians were concerned. But not much changed in the Morvan.

Paris only began paying attention to the Morvan—and perhaps the Morvan to Paris—because of the rich supply of wood in the area. Paris managed to find sufficient wood within its own surrounding region through the Middle Ages, but by the early 16th century that resource was nearly depleted. The kings, starting with Francis I, would not allow woodcutting in the royal domains that they reserved for hunting. Some wood was coming from northwest Burgundy by oxcart, but this was slow and costly.

In 1545, someone came up with the scheme to raft wood down the Cure River to the Yonne River, the Seine River and into Paris. It was a good idea but he had no funding. Charles Leconte, a native of Nièvre and prime carpentry contractor for the City Hall of Paris, then jumped on the idea and obtained funding.

On 20 April 1547, Leconte brought the first profitable raft of logs on the Yonne to Paris. Two years later an epic number of logs began floating to the capital.

This enterprise thrived for nearly 300 years, until wood was displaced in Paris by charcoal and then coal. At its peak, the annual volume of wood down the Yonne provided 90% of heating wood for Paris, exceeding 900,000 cubic yards of wood per year.

The annual cycle of selling and floating wood started on All Saints Day, 1 November, when the previous year’s wood harvest was auctioned at Châtillon-en-Bazois to 22 brokers by the owners of the forest properties. Within 15 days, the crews of those brokers and the forest owners marked each end of each length, called hammering, with a registered brand. These marked logs were stacked close to streams that ultimately flow to the Yonne. They were then moved into the streams in preparation for the “small wave” that started on 15 November. To obtain a sufficient flow of water, many reservoirs (made for this purpose) released water. Men and boys lined the streams and threw logs back into the flooding streams. This took the upstream logs to the 22 accumulation ports at the streams’ confluence with the Yonne.

After 15 November, the upstream reservoirs were dammed and an army of workers swarmed back into the Morvan forests for the winter to cut logs for the following year’s auction.

By 15 March, winter snows melted and the reservoirs were full again. Early that morning, water was released and marked wood from the accumulation ports flowed into the Yonne and on to Clamecy. All along the Yonne, men and boys risked their lives pushing the logs back into the river. The wave of wood was enormous; the river was covered with logs many feet thick and miles long.

Five hours later the residents of Clamecy, 20 to 30 miles downstream, heard the thunder of the approaching “Great Flood.” That was the signal to gather along town’s riverbanks to watch the logs arrive. With the initial roar of logs, the temporary wood dams below Clamecy were closed to raise the Yonne level and stop the flow of wood.

On the river banks, workers—men, women and children—drew wood out of the river with spiked poles up to 12 feet long. Women and children sorted the recovered logs and loaded them on special wheelbarrows. Then the wood was distributed to 30 workshop areas near the river depending on the logs’ marking.

The sorted logs were stacked 10 feet high with layers in alternating directions, roughly 5 cubic yards. There the wood dried until November.

In November, as the annual wood auction began way up stream, teams of six experienced workers in Clamecy assembled individual and complex rafts of logs, 250 feet long by 15 feet wide, with about 200 cords of wood. They then slid and levered the rafts into the Yonne and the next phase began. Two people were on each raft, the floater (a male adult) and his “little man in the back” (a teenager). When the raft got past the narrows upstream from Auxerre, the teenager left the raft and walked back to Clamecy. The floater guided the raft the rest of the way north down the quieter Yonne to the Seine and on to Paris, 155-mile ride that took 10 to 15 days.

Then innovation intruded into life along the Yonne. By the end of the 17th century the French had become master builders of canals and were extending the canal network throughout the kingdom.
Construction of the Canal du Nivernais began in 1784 with the goal of connecting the Loire basin with the Seine. This final 113-mile waterway for barges up to 99 feet in length and 16½ feet in width, including 110 locks and three tunnels, was finally inaugurated in 1841.

Paris had then started turning to coal for heat, and the Canal du Nivernais was also transporting upwards of 100 tons of coal per barge. With all that excess wood, the shops in Clamecy started making and shipping charcoal.

Canal tourism by barge and by bike

Commercial traffic along the Canal du Nivernais declined when a rail line was built nearby. That could have been the death of the canal.

Then Pierre Zivy pioneered canal tourism in France. The Canal du Nivernais had been effectively abandoned and was overgrown with vegetation. Between 1965 and 1970, traffic was virtually non-existent and there was consideration to close the waterway. But Zivy saw a future in the canal and put forward a plan. The region of Burgundy, supported by local and national funding, stepped in with money, renovating locks, tunnels, bridges, and the waterway for exclusive use of pleasure boats. To the great pleasure of cyclists like me, they implemented bicycle routes throughout the region, with old towpaths upgraded and paved for much of their length.

I rode here for a week in spring when the area is green, temperatures are moderate and the risk of rain acceptable. A bike path runs along the length of the canal, allowing easy cycling for those who wish to avoid hills, offering a leisurely pace during which to visit surrounding villages and absorb local culture and history. There are plenty of decent restaurants, and those in search of Burgundy wines and wine knowledge can certainly find them. Undoubtedly, fewer people here speak English than in the more popular eastern Burgundy wine region, but whenever I attempt a little French, even just a greeting, conversation thrives.

Along the gentle slopes above the canal, I bicycled through a couple of small villages and a section of woods that seemed right out of the eighteenth century, albeit with a wider and paved roadbed.

To get an idea where the annual wood auction took place, I rode south along the canal to Châtillon-en-Bazois. In addition to a few normally spaced locks, the canal flows through the Sardy Locks Ladder with its 16 locks and the three Collancelle Tunnels at the highest elevation of the canal. Built into each tunnel is a towpath just wide enough for a man to walk pulling a barge, but not wide enough for a weary horse that might misstep into the canal.

Discovering a new part of France by bike is always gratifying for me, whether the day ends with a glass of beer or a glass of wine. I thank Pierry Zivy and his appreciation for the canal for this one.

My appreciation for the lives of the Celts, the early foresters and floaters, Caesar’s legionnaires and residents of then smoky Paris increased during my week in the Yonne Valley and along its canal. The gîte I stayed in was clean and warmed with electric heat. The roads and bicycle paths were smooth. There were no critters trying to take up residence in my scalp. And I didn’t have to defend against invaders while cycling up Mount Beuvray, though I did once have to dodge a group of archeologists while barreling down a hill.

Text, photos and cycling map © Walter Judson Moore, 2011.

Walter Judson Moore is the author of four cycling guidebooks to France and three companion queue sheets. His guide “Bicycle Your France: Secret Burgundy” includes the area covered by this article. His work is available Lulu, Amazon and other online booksellers as well as directly (and personally signed) from the author, who may be reached at bicyclemoore@tampabay.rr.com.

More history of the wood commerce on the Yonne can be found here.

Official website of the Nièvre Department Tourist Board, specifically biking information.

Site of Les Amis du Canal du Nivernais (Friends of the Nivernais Canal).

Official website of Morvan Regional Natural Park.

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