The roosters had barely stretched their throats this morning before we were up and out.
On a Saturday Beaune has a well regarded street market and we wished to have a peek at it before we left town for the day so we strode across to it from our digs while they were still setting stalls up.
The stalls stretched approx. 800m down the street and into the very centre of the town, stalls which were displaying "stuff" of every description from clothes to shoes to chairs to mattresses to baskets and then the foodstuffs - cheeses, mustard, meat, poultry, vegetables, olives, breads, pastries - I think you will get the picture.
We only had time for a quickish stroll through the market as we had to be on the road by 9am but nevertheless we certainly picked up the flavour of a regular French street market.
When Sherry went to the eye specialist earlier this year she was talking to one of the attending optometrists, Brian, and in the conversation she discovered that he had a "holiday home" in Ancy-Le-Franc which was in the general area of our stay in Beaune.
It was loosely arranged between them that when we were in France later in the year we might make a visit.
During this past week we emailed Brian and invited ourselves to visit for the day an invitation he graciously accepted.
We arrived in Ancy-Le-Franc (ALF) at 10.30 and met him and his wife Lindsay at their 150 year old 3 storeyed typical French house in the village.
After introductions over coffee we them drove them to Noyers said to be the most beautiful village in Burgundy where there was another street market of bric-a-brac of all sorts of things of all sorts of ages.
The village itself had some attractive old buildings of the wood with cement infill type which were rather pleasant on the eye.
After walking among the stalls for an hour or so went to the restaurant Brian had booked at and then spent another hour or so over a very leisurely 2 course lunch accompanied by various liqueurs and a good Burgundy red.
Before leaving Noyers we had a look at the "lavoir" which was in use until the 1970s - the ladies of the village took their washing to the lavoir and washed it in the flowing water - thank God for washing machines!
Back to ALF to visit the Le Chateau d'Ancy le Franc which is a chateau in the Renaissance style built in the years between 1542 & 1550.
One of the reasons for the visit was the free wine tasting of numerous wines from the Burgundy region but I soon realised that if I kept on sipping I would be in no fit state to drive the car home.
The Chateau itself is quite outstanding as it is not as pretentious as some of the other chateaux we have visited and being in a small village there were no crowds.
A walk around the grounds looking at the 26 sculptures dotted through the gardens topped off the chateau visit.
Back to Brian and Lindsay's for a coffee before we said our goodbyes and we returned to Beaune arriving around 8pm with the temperature still at 28 degrees
Another enjoyable day in France!
P.S. Here is a did you know!
Did you know that you know approx 10,000 French words even though you can't speak French?
We were told that every English word that ends in "tion" apart from 3 is the same in French as it is in English!
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