From Siena across the Alps again and to Tournus

Thursday morning in Siena opened with incredibly gorgeous sun and blue skies. Rain was predicted but I couldn’t see how that can be, at least not here and not now. Anyway, We (that is Susie) packed up, we had a last breakfast at the hotel, paid the bill, loaded the car and hit the road for Florence.

Forty-five minutes later we got onto the A1 around Florence, then the A11 to Pisa, switching to the A12 for Genova, taking the A7 to Milan and changing to the A21 to Torino. There was light traffic as we bypassed Genova and even lighter traffic around Torino. The climb into the Alps saw few cars besides ours, and little traffic besides the occasional truck. It was wonderful to go back through there in such beautiful weather – when we passed here last Sunday it was rainy, overcast, foggy, and just generally miserable.

In fact the closer we got to the Alps, the higher we climbed toward the Frejus Tunnel, the clearer the skies, the bluer the color and incredibly warm temps.

We stopped a couple of times to stretch our legs, once to fill up with diesel (“gazole” in France – don’t ask me why) and then take a short break to grab a sandwich just short of the tunnel itself.

Eventually we descended into the Lyon area where we found our first real traffic slowdowns as we skirted around the city. But, like all annoyances, this too passed and before long we were on the A6 autoroute heading north to Paris.

About 100kms north of Paris, at exit no. 27, we drove into the lovely town of Tournus, looking for the La Tour du Tresorier, our stop for the evening. After getting a bit turned around we eventually found the tower that was to be our home for the evening:

Originally the treasure tower (thus the name) for the local bishop, overlooking the Saone River, this turned out to be an incredible place to stay. Our hosts Lotti and Michel immediately made us feel right at home. Their friendliness and attention to detail was evident throughout the house and rooms.


Out our window:

After we settled into our room – at the top of the tower in the bishop’s praying room -- they invited us down to their living room for a glass of wine where we met the other guests staying there, Jim and Pat, an American couple from Florida.

Michel had spent some of his earlier life in the wine industry and treated us all to two wonderful specialties: a chardonnay from Chardonnay and an incredible rosé from Bordeaux, produced by a friend of his. The six of us talked about food and wine, swapping stories, sharing experiences. A little after 8pm Susie and I said au revoir to the group; we had reservations for dinner at a nearby restaurant, Meulien, just across the bridge and an easy 10-minute walk.

We stopped outside into the incredibly peaceful quiet of the village and strolled to the bridge. Once across the passive Saone we easily found the restaurant and walked inside.

As further indication that we had made the right decision to stop in Tournus and break up an otherwise daunting drive to Paris, the restaurant just added to the perfection of the evening. The service was impeccable, the food outstandingly delicious and the wine (a 2007 Mercurey) perfect. Susie had a steamed whitefish and vegetable dish for her plat and I had a veal steak with spicy polenta.

Curiously, not another person came in to eat that evening. Odd we thought. I was starting to feel paranoid.

Anyway, there’s nothing quite like an after dinner stroll through the quiet of a Burgundian village. Even if these were the same folks who were largely responsible for burning Joanne of Arc they do make great wine, they’re very friendly and the food is truly superb.

So speaking of French history as we were walking back to the B & B, we both noticed a large placard on the side of a building facing the river. One sees a great many of these historical markers in Paris and indeed throughout France and it often warrants a quick scan of the text. Here I was rewarded with another one of those tiny coincidences that make life so incredibly interesting.

The placard noted that this was the birthplace of Simone Evrard, the wife of Jean-Paul Marat, who was assassinated by Charlotte Corday. I spent a day early on in my trip here, while Susie was in school, tracking the movements of Charlotte during here last several days alive, culminating in her murder of Marat.

Lotti was waiting up for us, anxiously awaiting the details of our dinner. (They had recommended the restaurant and the other guests had eaten there the previous evening and had had a wonderful experience.) We shared with her the full details of course, and thanked her for the perfect recommendation.

The next morning came too early – although that early light hitting the church directly across from our tower room, made me better understand why so many of the great painters came south to find their light and their color.

In fact, we were overwhelmed by the dozens upon dozens of enormous carpets of Brassicsa campestris, which produces colza oil, and was blooming everywhere in the southern half of France. The flowers possessed such a luminescent yellow it almost burned the eyes to look at it.

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast overlooking the Saone, regretting we wouldn’t be there that evening to sit out back and sip a crisp Macon white wine watching the afternoon turn to dusk and the dusk to twilight, the only concern being where to eat that night’s meal.



But we had appointments to keep – we had to return the car to Orly and hopefully catch up with Susie’s cousin Brenda who was in the process of taking a whirlwind tour of some of her favorite art haunts in Europe.

We had to go and so we did.

Saying goodbye we paid the bill, loaded the car and headed out of Tournus, away from the quiet, slow moving Saone and toward the noisy, frenetic A6, a river of asphalt.

From the road in France,