The Eastern sunlight poured into our room this morning, I was glad to see some sun to start my day. We kicked ourselves this morning to be up and out for the Saturday market of Arles. I have never seen such a market. It was incredibly rich and varied. I will let the images speak for themselves.

Home for lunch after the market to eat the treats we had found.

After lunch we went back onto the streets of Arles for a van Gogh treasure hunt. You can go on a self guided tour of the locations in Arles where van Gogh created 10 of his famous paintings. We made it to 8 of them. One we couldn’t find and the last was too far out of town to go on foot.

First stop was the Alyscamps where van Gogh painted this painting.

Then to the Rhone for a couple more of the paintings including the Starry Night.

Then to a square for a drink at the cafe painted by van Gogh.

We wandered the city all day seeing so many sights.

Exhausted, we went back to our apartment for a rest before an evening out and Dinner. Afterwards, more wandering the streets.

Then, back home to enjoy our terrific apartment.

Our last day at the Chateau began with a continental breakfast provided by the house. There are only three staff members there, but they easily attended to all our needs, despite the obvious fact that they have a big wedding scheduled this weekend, and the plans were afoot. We packed our gear into Colin, headed into Tournus for provisions and then onto the A6 and south to Provence. We stopped only once at one of the many “Aires du …” roadside rest stations for a picnic lunch and a rest.

The weather improved as we made our way south, and the landscape became distinctly more tomato rather than potato. We passed lavender fields and sunflower fields. And the occasional ancient fortress.

We made it to Arles, which is a bustling but small city, and – after one incident of driving Colin down such a narrow street that the locals stopped me and gestured that it was not going to work if I continued – eventually I managed to drop everyone off close to our new apartment. It is in a pedestrian only area, I had to hunt for the secure parkade recommended by our host. Sadly, it was too short for Colin, so I backed out and eventually found free parking on the street. I eventually made my way back to our lovely new apartment in the heart of old Arles. It is a lovely, roomy place in the heart of town but the back of the building, so it is quiet and bright and beautifully renovated, despite its 16th century foundations and 18th century core.

We rested and refreshed and then threw ourselves onto the town. I had noticed people wearing anachronistic clothing while walking to the apartment from the car, and we then stumbled upon a square where all of these people had gathered. We were coincidentally on time for the start of an annual peasant parade where locals dress the part, make music and dance with lavender and sunflowers, flutes and drums. It was charming! It is apparently an annual festival that seems to draw the entire town. If we had followed them beyond the initial parade, we would have (we found out later) seen them do a whole ceremony with horses and bulls in the mini Roman Colosseum they have here.

After the peasant parade, we grabbed a quick and late dinner in a lovely restaurant that used to be an ancient cloister, with gorgeous vaulted ceilings. We ate on the patio, and decided that, as veggies, we love Provence: more veg, cheap rose wine, friendly service (some of which are very attractive), and more greenery everywhere.

We rounded out the night with a review of Doctor Who’s episode about Vincent van Gogh, in preparation for our day in Arles tomorrow.

We took advantage of the quiet to have a bit of a sleep-in, but not so long as to miss the provided breakfast. The ominous clouds disallowed us to do this out by the creek, but we were optimistic that the weather would improve later. Our host gave us a quick tour of the chateau’s wine-making rooms and cellars. She told us all about the chateau’s business and the regulations on the industry in the area. She said, for instance, you can never mix grapes here: “If you did, you would probably go to jail!” Aurore also showed us the gym they have made out of the old horse stable (corrals and hay holders still in place), and took us out to the massive pool, which made us really want the weather to improve!

There were a few fancy cars among the wine works too.

In the meantime, we headed out to see the surrounding area. We drove the 5km to the closest village: Ozenay. It’s the sort of place with about a dozen buildings including the church. We wandered the entire town, visited the church, and jumped back in Colin.

On the other side of our Chateau, about 7 km away, there’s a medieval hilltop village complete with ruined castle, named Brancion. It was filled with school groups about to go up to the castle, so we wandered the village first. And had ice cream. Parts of the village are quite original, but other parts have been turned into rental accommodations, and there’s all kinds of interesting art installations everywhere. There’s an interesting church up on the hill too, dating back to 7th century, with a very wobbly floor and more odd modern art installations. The church’s hill offers expansive vistas of the Burgundy valley, dotted with vineyards, sheep, and cows (most of them creamy white). The view was even more impressive up on the lookout tower of the castle.

On the way back, we stopped in the next closest village, Martailly les Brancion. For some inexplicable reason, it has a traffic light in the middle of town … a town where we have yet to see a car … and it stays red so long there is really no choice but to just drive through! This town does have an actual wine distributor (rather than just a chateau selling their own product). There were 3 huge vats selling very local product for as little as 1.60 euro per litre, and two huge rooms of bottled Burgundy too. We sampled a couple, bought a couple bottles, and smuggled them back to Chateau Messey. On the property, we ran into the owner’s wife, and she guided us to a cute little picnic table by the creek where we could eat our lunch. We had to eat fast though; the thunder, lightening, and eventual downpour started just as we unpacked!

After an hour or so, though, the sun came out strong enough for us to have a lovely swim … and as we were finishing that, more thunder etc!

Our host made another reservation for us for dinner, this time in Ozenay. She claimed they had excellent food and had just earned a Michelin star. They were not pleased to meet vegetarians, though, and were even less pleased when we told them we didn’t want the full three course veggie menu they had planned for us. The food was excellent, but the snooty service and aged clientele left a sour taste in our mouth. I guess we aren’t the Michelin type. We walked the property of the Chateau after dinner and retired for the night.

Today was a travelling day journeying from Vermenton to Ozenay. I wanted to take just the regional “D” roads to see the countryside at a less frantic speed. But before we left we had a French breakfast of brie, pears, baguette and COFFEE! Our host had provided an expresso making machine with complementary coffee in the common area of the building. I have missed coffee while in France. It is available but not readily and usually 2 euro for an espresso shot. Our lovely host Beatrice stopped by to say goodbye as she had to go into town on business. She said there was no hurry for us to leave and that we could take our time. So we did. Triumph and I went down to the river again and took a few photos. We both remarked on how peaceful it is there and how we could understand why the monks would like this place. Then the four of us took our two remaining carrots to the donkey paddock at the end of the property. I think “Louise” was getting to like our visits. We said goodbye to the old donkey, packed Colin, and left the Abbey.

We decided to take a slight detour on our journey to Ozenay. There is a village called Vezelay just off the main road and up on a mountain. It makes it onto the list of “most beautiful villages in France.”

Sitting atop the small mountain, this village has a great view of the vineyard-filled valley below. The basilica at the very top of the mountain dominates the town and is not deserted. We saw numerous priests and nuns and pilgrims inside and outside the church. What was astonishing to us was that they were so very young. Who knew young people still chose to go into the church as a job?

We checked out the inside of the church and then got some macarons, some baguette and some coffee. Then we got back on the road. When we stopped to check the map, a man pulled over and offered us help … in Italian … because Colin has an Italian license plate. He soon realized we weren’t Italians and switched to French. Then he escorted us all the way to the next big town, even stopping and waiting to wave us through the right exit when we made a slight error at a traffic circle.

We rejoined the D606 south to Tournus. This road passes through a national park and the countryside was quite forested and indeed lovely. However, heavy thunderstorm clouds had been threatening all morning and half way on our trip they let loose. The rain, at one point, was so heavy we decided to pull off the road. We waited out the rain by munching baguette inside the van parked under a big tree. We resumed driving as the road went along the western rim of the Rhone valley. Looking east, we saw the valley drop down and go on as far as the eye could see. Eventually, we made it to Chalon, which is a pretty big city with awful traffic. We experienced our first traffic jam since leaving Paris and were idling slowly through town for almost an hour. Yuck!

Eventually, we got past the town and onto a smaller regional road to our next stop. The villages were getting cuter and smaller and older-looking … purer to their original states.

Our destination, Chateau Massey, is a beautiful and quiet working winery and an inn. We were greeted by Aurore who showed us our room and treated to some of the house wine. She recommended a restaurant in a nearby village and made a reservation for us. We drove through some truly beautiful Burgundian countryside to Chapieze for dinner at St Martin restaurant. This was a traditional Burgundy restaurant, but Aurore (a vegetarian herself) assured us that they can do vegetarian fare with some warning. After a rather fancy-looking dinner, we walked through the small town, stepped into their tiny church, and then back to the Chateau stopping along the road to watch the sunset and sheep near the Ozeney River. Finally, we returned to the chateau for the night.

We were so delighted by the abbey and its grounds that we decided to stay on the property for the whole day except for a couple short trips into town.

In the morning, Triumph used the large common room to do a workout and even used a large stone to add some weight for squats. Then Triumph and I took a swim in the outdoor pool while Athena prepared for her impending UBC course registration.

On the first trip into town, Athena and I arrived at the market just after 1PM to find it inexplicably closed. On closer inspection, it turned out that they take a “sieste” for two hours in the afternoon. Athena and I decided to return later to provision for dinner, so we just stopped at a small artisanal boulangerie for baguettes and went back to the Abbey to make lunch with what we had.

After lunch, we visited with the old donkey and gave her some more carrots.

Then we decided to be brave and take the rather old dinghy and two kayaks out into the river for a boating adventure. The dinghy had a cracked outer skin and so the foam core was waterlogged and therefore quite heavy, but she remained afloat for Captain Kristine and first mate Athena. Triumph and I were in the kayaks and had to learn to steer them, which was tricky for us; we would often find ourselves in uncontrolled 360 degree spins. Our flotilla went upstream to the end of the long wall which runs along the river and delimits the end of the Abbey property. Then we headed downstream to the dyke wall. There was a small waterfall over the dyke wall, which we were not brave enough to run. We headed back to the launch site and disembarked.

After the boat ride, Athena and I headed back into town to provision for lunch and dinner, then, at 5PM, Beatrice, our host, gave us a tour of the Abbey. The interior of the common rooms are now styled as a 17th century residence.

One thing we learned was that the Abbey sustained significant damage during the revolution. It wasn’t just the royalty and nobility who were targets of revolutionary zeal; the institutions of the church were fair game too. In fact, the Abbey buildings were much larger than they presently are. Some of the losses were from the revolution but other demolition was by the monks themselves, downsizing the Abbey as the population of priests decreased. It was 400 monks and laymen at its height and down to 8 monks near the end of its occupation. (The red part in the map are buildings no longer in existence.)

During our tour, a large thunderstorm passsed over the Abbey and there was a downpour, thunder, and lightening. Happily we were inside for most of it. The rectory was probably the most impressive building on the property; it was the dining hall for the monks with a vaulted ceiling and beautiful windows where they now hold conferences and wedding receptions.

After the tour, on our way back to our apartment, we witnessed an unholy event! Not once but twice, we saw Henrietta the chicken eat a garden snake! Ew!

In the late afternoon, we sat on the deck and then retreated when the next thunderstorm came. At a specific hour, Athena was suppose to do her course signup online and Kristine worried that we might lose power because of the storm. However, she managed to get it done, the clouds eventually passed, and we had a lovely family dinner prepared by Athena. At the same time, our host had a party of her own and at one point there were 5 or 6 excited French children in the pool next to our apartment.

We went to bed full of food and burgundy.