Day 1: We’re up before the sun today. Not a huge feat in France, I’ll admit. The sun only makes a rather lackluster appearance sometime around eight o’clock.
We soon leave Beaune behind, as we peddle along the Vélor Route through mist-shrouded vineyards and villages.
Every village smells of freshly-crushed pinot grapes and the wine caves are awash with the post-pressing cleanup.
Tractors are being tucked away and even the horses, which are still used in the vineyards today, get a break from their hard labour.
This pair (pictured below) wait for their owner to pick up his baguette…
It’s impossible to capture the sensational landscape we cycle through, so I give up on the photography thing and revel in the pure bliss of it.
…on the baguette run
Then we hit the hills – those deadly endless slopes that rise slowly but surely, along with the burning in my thighs…
EB is riding rings around me. Literally.
We finally arrive in Chassay-la-Camp, and find our delightfully-retro hotel…and there are those pampered pooches again.
Guests are allowed to keep their dogs in their rooms – and bring them to the dining room.
One lady had her pug-faced dog with her for dinner and breakfast. And yes, dogs and their owners do look the same.
I desperately wanted to take a photo, but I was scared she might bite me. The lady, not the dog.
Day 2: We spend a lot of time trying to decipher directions, and even more time stopping for wine tasting and having a very long lunch in Mercurey.
The long lunch wasn’t really our intention.
But, at the suggestion of the lovely wine-tasting guy, we soon found ourselves (in our bike duds) having a delicious silver-service, five-course lunch at the Hôtellerie du Val d’Or across the road.
For just €22 each! Incroyable…
I won’t go into the gruesome details of the remaining 40 or so kilometres we had yet to cycle (with our overfed bellies). Or the hills.
Let’s just say, I was seriously considering mainlining nurofen about 15 km into it…
Are we ready for Day 3? Bien sur.
But right now, we’re crashing. Bon nuit.
Flight path 