Road trip to Dijon (Col. Mustard awaits!)
After a great night’s sleep, we’re off to Dijon, France, home to…yep, mustard. Apparently, they have a mustard museum there that we may have to check out this week. That is if we get through all the wine tasting we came for! Sorry, but you have to see this…and auto-crapper! The lid raises as you approach and you can select various “spray” modes. Misty mountain (button on the far right) is my fave. We’re coming back here on our way home so let me know if you want a full demo video.
The driver showed up right on time and took us to get our rental vehicle. This is really a traveler’s secret but I’ll share it with you all. If you are renting a car in Europe for 22 days, you can lease a car from Fiat or Peugeot on their “buy back” program. This is really an awesome deal. These rental cars are brand new from the factory, fully loaded with all the goodies, and come with full insurance (0 deductible), unlimited miles. Our car is a Peugeot 2008 (model not year), a small SUV style car, air, GPS, Navigation, etc., had 78 miles on it when we checked out, and now the best part, $40 / day. And they say Travel Advisors can’t save you money, hah!
The drive from Lyon is about 3 hours and 38 minutes, no toll roads. If we decided to pay the monsieur, we could have made it in 2 hours. No rush, we can’t check in to our AirBnB until 4pm so we have the time.
The drive was nice but not very exciting. Mostly drove through small towns surrounded by corn fields and an occasional industrial park, but all-in-all, just an easy drive. Google only got lost two or three times which meant we had to pull over and reset her but we got here. Since we were early, we decided to stroll around the pedestrian area and find a nice place for a glass of wine, did I tell you they have wine here, and low and behold, there it was, Trinidad wine bar! I’ll have a nice red and a chard for the Misses.
It was wonderful, the nose was soft, the lines and hips were subtle, color was perfect. That was our waitress, the wine was good too. No idea of the brand or vintner but both wines were really nice, and only cost 8EU! What a bargain!
OK, time to head for the apartment but first, the Visitor’s Center for maps and info on those wineries we have been talking about. Now, off to our casa for the next 9 days.
Found the place with minimal trouble, had a few u-turns and a couple back-outs but we found it. Got the keys and made our way into the humble abode. Two bedrooms, one bath, private parking (really nice), and close to city center. Unpacked our cases, made our way to the Carefour store less than a block away for a few necessities, (eggs, bread, mix for our duty-free vodka, chips, etc.) Back to the apartment for a quick shower, dinner and a bit of relaxing, maybe a dice or card game. Damn, life is so good!
More to follow…