Bourg-en-Bresse

Saturday 19/9/09 –

Beaune to Bourg-en-Bresse

We left Beaune early and Michael drove us to Bourg-en-Bresse with a morning coffee stopover at Tournus another ancient town originally inhabited by the Romans upon which another very pretty but enormous light filled cathedral/Basilica/Church/abbey/monastery was built with reliquaries, crypt and Romanesque mosaics. But more important issues were motivating us to keep moving as it was absolutely imperative that we make it to our destination and internet connection ASAP – the mobile phones were running hot with progress scores but we needed to see the Collingwood Vs Geelong preliminary final live and unfortunately/fortunately we did see the second half.

Another lovely room booked by Karol, 3rd floor but with a lift, balcony and great view over the roof tops towards the city centre and 2 huge churches/cathedrals/basilica/abbey/monastery. One observation is that wherever we have stayed in France the toilet and bathrooms have been big and clean and this one is the best so far – brand spanking new with a bidet and separate toilet to boot. The toilet is especially significant for its extremely assertive flushing system. A band of 20 water jets aimed at every square centimetre erupts with the force of a moon shot taking off – yep nothing stands a chance against this piece of plumbing engineering. Which leads me to another observation – French plumbing is particularly fine. The French seem to take pride in making little delicate taps which measure out and turn off water very precisely – voila! yes verily a practical demonstration of finesse.

After the game Mary and I visited the abbey which is one of France’s masterpieces - another light filled enormous soaring floating tower of stone, but filled with the most intricate carving of religious stories and myths in ivory, stone and wood. All breathtaking and again absolutely wonderful and staggering to think it was all done in 32 years and commenced and overseen by Margaret , a duchess of Burgundy in about 1500 - 1532.

Then Mary and I undertook a tourism promotion walk where we had to locate 21 large chook sculptures, all prepared by artists to celebrate the reason why this region is world famous – for their chooks, hidden amongst beautiful medieval buildings all over the town. We were going well and feeling happy until after nearly 4 hours of walking I took a wrong turn that seemed to add an interminable distance onto the end of a tiring day. But our energy was restored over dinner by verifying that the Bresse chicken breast is best, especially with a couple of glasses of Beaujolais, the region’s wine. And another lovely short walk home in the light warm rain.