The Chateau in the Country - de Cormatin

 For our final long bus ride of the cruise, we drove back out into the area around Cluny Abbey, this time to visit the Chateau de Cormatin. The chateau has a connection with the Abbey in that in 1280 the original owner, Henri de Ble, built a fortified house to control the path leading to Cluny Abbey. Recall that this was when there were many, many pilgrims visiting the Abbey, and if he could exact a small fee for using the road, he would make a lot of money. In 1606 his descendent, Antoine, decided the house wasn't enough and built a castle there instead.

The drive through rural Burgundy was quite lovely and we went through a number of villages that dated back hundreds of years on the way.

The Castle has a long history, including a very interesting story about how it was not taken over or destroyed during the French Revolution. During the 'Great Fear' of 1789 which was the precursor to the Revolution, Burgundy Wine apparently saved the day when a mass of rioters stormed up, ready to burn the place down. Pierre Dezoteux, husband of the owner, Sophie Verne, decided to give them the contents of the wine cellars to calm them down - and it worked! And even during the Revolution, Sophie and her 6 children were safe in the castle, as it was never attacked. Those rioters must have known that wine was particularly valuable.

The chateau even has a pair of resident storks. They will
come back to their nest every year, and we know
there are at least a couple of young chicks in there.

The recent history of the castle began in 1980, when three friends purchased it for a literal pittance of about 250,000 Francs. It was in ruins at the time, but they did want to restore it and furnish it as a historical museum. Once they began restoration, they found some of the painted walls and ceilings that had disappeared under about 300 years of dust. They also discovered some beautiful paintings.

Since about 1990, they have put about 250,000 Euros per year into the restoration, having now spent over 5 Million Euros in renovation, decorating, and purchasing antiques of the periods they want to display. They manage to fund this mainly through the entrance fee paid by the 60,000 visitors they welcome every year. Happy to do our part!

The library, decorated in the style of 1900, when
Cormatin was owned by the Director of the Monte Carlo Opera.
He held an annual Music Festival where performers
such a Caruso would present an opera or operetta
in front of the castle facade.

A beautiful fan fireguard

The Marquis' bedroom, hung with tapestries
from the mid-1600s

The kitchen, which had been the Marquis's antechamber
until Sophie and her kids spent the Revolution
alone. She moved the kitchen closer to the living quarters

The St.-Cecilia Cabinet, or the Marquis's
office. All of this decoration was found under the dust
and is now the best preserved piece of early 17th century
decoration in France

The Marquise's bedroom, where she not only
would sleep, but also eat and receive guests

The Antechamber where visitors waited to be 
received

The very small Hall of Mirrors, which was popular
in the early 17th Century as a 'cabinet of curiosities',
with exotic and odd objects. Here there are tortoise
shells, a skull or two, and two 'unicorn horns', only recently
acquired but fitting the period. We now know them to be narwhal tusk.

Not only is the castle itself impressive, there are beautiful formal gardens around it, which they also had to recreate. The original gardens from the early 1600s were remodeled a number of times, and then destroyed in 1815 when the moat was filled in. In 1988-89, the moats were rebuilt and the gardens could be reconstructed. A baroque formal garden, complete with labyrinth hedge, was planted in the early 1990s and it looks marvelous today.

A look out from one of the upstairs windows

One of the main features of the gardens is the blue wrought iron domed aviary/gazebo. You can climb the spiral staircase inside to overlook the gardens from the dome. The aviary/gazebo is the oldest and largest of this architectural style in all of Europe.

The aviary/gazebo on the left

The view over part of the labyrinth toward
the castle

They also recreated a kitchen garden behind one of the outbuildings, as they do actually live in a separate wing of the castle. It isn't large, but they have some lovely plants, herbs and even orange and lemon trees in tubs.

On the way back to the chateau gate, we passed some sheep resting under a tree in a nearby field.

Another very interesting visit for us. We had an hour's bus ride back to Lyon and the ship, and then had some time in the afternoon to relax before the Chef's Signature Dinner. We spent a little time up on the forward deck again, as it was, miraculously, not raining when we arrived.

Salad

Pumpkin Cream Soup

Deconstructed 'Kartoffelpuffer' (potato pancake)
with Scallop.....not quite what I expected, but it tasted good

'Land and Sea' - a small steak with a large shrimp

Special chocolate mousse dessert. That blob on
the left is a smoke bubble that managed to make
it to the table before it popped!

After dinner we had some local entertainment - a couple of singers with their pianist and soprano sax accompanists. Beautiful French music, lovely voices and quite the sense of humour - we had a great evening.

Tomorrow is the last day on the ship. We have our tour of Lyon in the morning, followed directly by the special lunch at Paul Bocuse which was announced on Saturday evening. We're all looking forward to it, and hoping that the rain might maybe hold off for a whole day. Fingers crossed!

The Old Town of Beaune on the Cote d'Or

Our next long bus ride took us to the furthest extreme of the truncated Saone cruise, the town of Beaune. On the bus we crossed over into the Burgundy wine region, which is also famous for the beef stew and the escargots 'Bourguignon'.

The town of Beaune is most famous for its former hospital and old age home, the Hospices. Given that the hospital was established in 15th century, it is amazing to think that the last residents of the home only moved out in the 1970s when a new, modern hospital was built.

The most striking thing about the hospital is the beautiful patterned tiles on the roof facing the courtyard. The tiles shine in the rain (as we could see) and in bright sunshine as they are glazed and this type of patterning is traditional in the Burgundy region. In the case of the Hotel-Dieu, this pattern is only visible on the courtyard side of the buildings. The outside tiles are plain grey so the building would appear not to hold anything of value to someone wanting to pillage.

It's raining again, as you can see from the umbrellas

The hospital was run and staffed by nuns, from an order which was established by Nicholas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy, and his wife in 1443, specifically to house and heal the local population after the plague. The museum now is furnished as it would have been in the 1800s.

The altarpiece from the chapel in the hospital was only
opened to this side on special occasions. Normally it looked
rather bland.

This is part of one of the tapestries from inside

 This is how the beds were arranged in the Room of the Poor,
where most of the patients lived.

A depiction of one of the sisters using a
bed warmer, a sled that held hot coals that
was put under the sheets to warm them.

The chapel altar, with a reproduction of the
altarpiece we had seen earlier

The garden outside the hospital building

One of the very interesting parts of the Hospices was the apothecary. It was furnished as it would be in the 1800s and had a very impressive stock of all sorts of medicines and herbals, many of which are still used today. The apothecary was run by the nuns, who even did all of the work to prepare medications, but they were overseen by a doctor.

Some of the equipment used to prepare
medications and remedies

Only a small fraction of the carafes 
holding any number of medicinals

After our visit to the Hospices, we had free time to wander through the outdoor and indoor parts of the market as it was market day. Once more, delectable produce, cheeses and charcuterie made our mouths water. We had also been given money to have lunch on our own (Tauck really didn't want anyone to go hungry, and I think it was also to make up for not being able to sail)

A cheese merchant

Sausages of all types

Inside, charcuterie including terrines and 'head cheese'

Olives and olive based salads

And a local favourite - nougat - in a multitude
of different flavours

We wandered a bit away from the town square and the market, and found a restaurant on another small square. It was just before noon when we arrived, and we thought it would be a good idea to grab a table for lunch while they were still available. And it was a good thing we did! No more than 15 minutes later, the restaurant was so full that they had to put out a sign that they were full up!

There was a lovely local menu, and, even better, a 3 course fixed price menu. You choose appetizer, main and dessert, all for 27 Euros. It couldn't be beat, especially after we saw how much we got. Escargots, Boeuf Bourguignon, and regional desserts! We were so full after lunch that we decided to skip our planned excursion from Beaune to Chalon-sur-Saone for a walking/tasting tour. We couldn't have eaten another thing!

Me and my escargot, the way my Dad used to
make them.

Larry and his pot of beef stew with boiled potatoes

A close-up

Desserts - I had the red wine poached pear in the
front (I had no idea Rice Krispie Squares
were French!), and Larry had ice cream
with berries and whipped cream

So we hopped on the bus that was going back to Lyon and spent the afternoon digesting our lunch. We had a light dinner that night, but we had to have a little something for dessert, as the pastry chef had gone out of her way to produce the special Chocolate Extravaganza:

That was it for the day. We dropped into bed early, as we had yet another longish drive in the morning, this time to visit Chateau Cormatin.