heading south

after unpacking and settling into the apt for 2 days, we took off for the south. we were heading to aix-en-provence to visit my “cousin”, amy (close and longtime family friend) who has been living there for the last 3 years. it’s a 7 hour drive from paris, so we decided to break up the journey by stopping half way. we stopped in beaune, the historic market town of burgundy, where all the local wines were traditionally sold. it is an old town, with red tile roofed stone buildings lined higgledy piggledy down narrow cobblestone streets. it seems to cover a space of no more than 10 city blocks. it is a working wine town, but also a tourist town with lots of cafes, restaurants and clothing and shoe shops. it was a beautiful, sunny day and there were plenty of tourists milling around the pedestrian streets.

p and i wanted to go back to the “marche aux vins”, a great place where you can taste many types of local wines. we had come here years and years ago and in my memory, there were over 50 wines to try. perhaps it was because i had no alcohol tolerance then, and the actual 15 (or so) wines seemed like a huge number to me. in fact, the “marche aux vins” is really a store selling its own collection of wines but it does offer the opportunity to try a variety of wines from different local towns. the other fun thing is that it is housed in an old church. they charge 10 euros for the tasting, hand you your “tastevin” ( little silver wine tasting cup), and you descend into the “cave” and walk along damp, mildewy underground tunnels lined with wine bottles and barrels. at each station there is a barrel set on its end with an open bottle of wine on top for you to pour into your tastevin to taste. if you like it, you can go to the shelf and take a few bottles to put it in your wire shopping basket. as you go along, the wines get progressively better and more expensive. at the end of the tunnel of cellars, you climb up some steps and emerge in the main nave of the old church to find the finer wines. the first time i had come, i discovered that my favorite wine of the region was a “volnay premier cru”. the second time i came, i just passed by the wines in the cellar and came straight to the upper church. this time, i wasn’t as bowled over by the wines, but it i always like tasting and comparing wines, in the effort to broaden my wine sense. however, the most interesting thing on this particular trip was not the wine, but something else that happened.

we figured rather than following us around the dank caves watching us drink, j would be happier in the middle of the main square sketching drawings. so we left her in the middle of the bright center square, also thinking this might give her more practice in being more autonomous. as we were down in the subterranean part of beaune, p got a text from j, who said she was going to explore the town. we both looked at each other with raised eyebrows. hmm, this was progress. j has been typically timid about being independent, but i guess her recent shopping phase had enticed her into exploring on her own. when we emerged from our tasting, we were very pleased to meet up with her and have her show us around town. she dragged us to several stores in which she had found things she liked, and got our approval to buy some clothes. she got some really good deals too!

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