Beaune - Besançon, France

Tuesday 8th June 1999

First stop today was a ruined 13th century abbey just near our campsite. There wasn't much to see so we didn't stop for long before heading in to the town of Beaune, in the heart of the Burgundy wine district. The main site is the Hôtel-Dieu, a 15th century charity hospital. It was deliberately made dull on the outside to conceal the wealth of the interior.

None of the cellars in the town were in our price range, and the days of free wine-tastings seemed long gone, so we headed for some of the smaller towns in the surrounding countryside. After trying a couple of places but finding nothing to our taste we finally headed for the cooperative warehouse, sacrificing character for choice. Here we found abundant options to our price and taste and so stocked up as much as the van could handle (which amounted to four bottles).

Since we were now headed for Switzerland we stopped in at the town of Besançon to stock up on supplies. This took the rest of the evening so we camped just outside town by the river (close enough to use the supermarket toilets the next morning).