Today we depart Switzerland for France. We have a 5 hour drive ahead of us with a rest stop along the way. We weaved our way out of the mountains, crossed the border to France (after a brief stop) then entered rolling hill terrain and farmland. We passed fields of wheat, corn and sunflowers and saw fields with cows. The it suddenly changed and we were into mountains again. We had our lunch stop at a mall. It was much like the malls in the US with Foot Locker, Levis and Claire's. It also had a large grocery store. I picked up some picnic items for later. We arrived in Beaune around 2:15 p.m. Our hotel, The Rampart Hotel, is built into the medieval city walls and dates back to the 1600's. Jody gave us an orientation walk (the town is small-only takes 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other), then we entered the Hotel Dieu, the 443 hospital for the sick and dying. We were one our own with our audio guides, so we could spend as much time as we wanted. I wanted to see everything, so I took my time. I left around 5:00 pm and met the group back at the hotel's wine cellar for a wine tasking with the hotel owner. Afterwards I set out with my maps to explore the small town. I saw their church, Notre Dame (it was closed for the day), walked to the city park, saw the Arch of St. Nick, them climbed the stairs to the medieval walls, then headed back to the hotel for the evening. This is such a beautiful town.

​

Click on the image below to expand.