The plane hit the tarmac at Charles deGaulle-Roissy airport at ten o’clock on a brisk March evening. A lone figure, whose face was disquietly similar to mine, stepped out onto French soil, his sharp, square jaw set tight against the cutting wind (well, one assumed he had a square jaw beneath that clump of graying fuzz he called a beard). His blue eyes pierced the gloom, taking in every detail. He carried his weathered backpack in his left hand while the two bags under his eyes dragged behind. He smelled of curried dal, fatigue, and mayonnaise from the frites he had eaten during his 6 hour layover in Amsterdam.
I had just returned from a week and a half in New Delhi. I was tired, hungry and in bad need of a shower. I collected my keys from the car rental desk at the airport, dumped my suitcase on the back seat and headed off to find my hotel. I had no clue where I was. The back streets were dark and road signs made no sense (they were in French). Were they telling me which town I was approaching or if I should slow down for a snail crossing? I ended up on a toll road with only Indian pounds and American dollars in my pocket. I tossed a handful of coins at the toll collector and, receiving my first-ever genuine Gallic shrug, turned back down the same road. An hour later found me at the bar of my hotel (it was only five minutes from the airport as it turned out) with two martinis on my right and a hotel guide on my left.
My original plan was to drive around Burgundy for the next couple days to explore the vineyards and taste some legendary Grand Crus. After swallowing the last olive of my third drink I said, “No way I’m driving again in this crazy country, bub.” Bub didn’t answer so I went up to my room, curled into a fetal position and slept, occasionally crying out something about A Road to Nowhere and being cooked in butter and garlic. Next morning I parked the car in a garage in Paris where it stayed for five days. I never made it to the wine country.
Eight years later I boarded a train from Gare de Paris Bercy to Dijon with my companion to finish the trip I had begun. The train eased out of the station silently and picked up speed. We watched the landscape zip past our window as the mundane houses and apartment buildings of the Paris banlieue melted into rolling green landscapes dotted with tiny villages. The towns in the distance were really only a small clump of low, brown structures accented by a church steeple but they were reassuring in that we were traveling away from the city. I perused my wine guide, memorizing each village and appellation along the small section of Burgundy we would be exploring.
Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Auxey-Duresses, Nuit-St.-Georges, Gevrey-Chambertin-these were names of the wines from the mythic Côte d’Or. I’d read these labels and tasted these wines so many times. This was to be much more than a short five-day jaunt into a legendary land. It was a pilgrimage.
At 12:30 PM we arrived in Dijon. The sun was high and the day looked bright. We hunted down our car rental desk and, of course, true to the French attitude of exacting customer service, it was closed for lunch. Lunch in the provinces is usually from noon to two or three o’clock depending on the shop and far into the country you are. We had to wait a full hour and a half for the desk to open again. Lunch was needed, but we had no idea where to go or how far. So our first meal in Dijon, Gateway to the Côte d’Or, was a burger and fries at a Quick stand, the French equivalent of Burger King. At a train station.
Our car rental agent finally appeared an hour later. She flicked a stray piece of lettuce from her lunch of salade aux foie de voilailles (a warm salad with chicken livers; where did she get THAT at a train station?) as we zipped through the paper work. She led us to our car. It was a tiny Peugeot 107. It was a becoming mustard yellow, appropriate, I thought, coming from Dijon.
Our first stop was east along A38 and then a number of side roads to Saulieu, a large town at the foot of a natural, protected forest named Parc du Morvan. Our destination was on the other side of the Morvan. We were invited to stay with my Parisian neighbors in their country home. But first was Saulieu, famous for its food and the Relais Bernard Loiseau.
Bernard Loiseau was a famous three Michelin star chef whose tragic death by his own hand in 2003 (rumored due to losing one of his stars) stunned the industry. We were welcome to walk around the gardens and view the sitting and billiards rooms. One could hear the soft swoosh! of ice in a silver bucket and a sharp pop! as a bottle of champagne is uncorked and hisses into a tall goblet. Ah, well, next time……
Our meandering route took us past small villages and sites with wonderful sounding names: St. Brisson, Corbigny, Brinon, les Petites Fourches and Quarres-les-Tombes. We were happily surprised with each village, charmed by the old houses and quaint atmosphere. But the biggest surprise was that we actually saw them. We assumed we were headed in the exact opposite direction. Our route echoed my first driving experience in France; the road signs made no sense as we followed the designated route on narrow, one-way streets through villages whose main attraction, it seemed, was a café and a flower pot. Many times we discovered we had passed through a village when we saw the sign indicating that we were leaving it.
But the drive was pleasant and the weather on our side. We arrived at our friends’ house at seven that evening and after drinks and a home-made boeuf Bourguignon we fell exhausted into bed.
The following day saw us in the little town of Clamecy on market day. There’s not much to Clamecy, save for a large church and a covered market in the middle of town. It boasts of a grand history of logging, sitting as it does on the River Yonne, floating logs on rafts all the way to Paris. We spent most of our time buying olives and sitting at a café with a panaché (an odd but refreshing mixed drink of beer and lemonade) and a kir on the main street watching the people and chatting with the owner.
Now it seems the main industry is a slim tourist trade and, during the time we were there, preparing for the Fête de l’Escargots, a Festival of Snails, which was happening that evening to celebrate the 14th of July. Yes, just like Americans on our National Independence Day, as we throw hand-formed burgers and hot dogs on smoking barbeque fires and pop open beers, the French crack open snail shells forks brimming with garlic and butter and pull the corks on a four year old Sancerre or Morey-Saint-Denis. Really, folks, we’re all the same, right?
The next day we filled our little four-wheeled mustard pot with petrol and headed back east, retracing our route for a bit then turning southeast. We lunched in Autun and then, finding the route D973, pointed the car to Beaune.
An hour later a road sign loomed ahead; it read “Route des Grands Crus”. Moments later we saw our first Burgundian vineyard. I stopped to drink in the scene (pun intended). The real journey had finally begun.
à suivre…
Doug
Cushman is a former Redding artist and author who lives and works in Paris. He was born in Springfield,Ohio,and moved to Connecticut with his family at the age of 15. In high school he created comic books lampooning his teachers, selling them to his classmates for a nickel apiece. Since 1978, he has illustrated and/or written more than 100 books for children and collected a number of honors, including a Reuben Award for Book Illustration from the National Cartoonists Society, New York Times Children’s Books Best Sellers, and the New York Public Library’s Best 100 Books of 2000. He enjoys hiking, kayaking and cooking (and eating!). Learn more at his website, doug-cushman.com.
