BURGUNDY


LEFT: Amuse-bouches at La Côte Saint Jacques & Spa, a hotel and two-Michelin-star restaurant in Joigny RIGHT: Les Halles Market in Dijon, designed by Gustave Eiffel in the 19th century


him how much I enjoyed my dinner, his face lights up. The Route Nationale 6 runs past the door


— in fact, the Lorain family have built a passage beneath it, so their guests can enter the small town of Joigny more easily by foot — but many people pause here for wonderful food and accommodation, then simply speed on. In keeping with my slow mission, I stroll into the nearby Saint-André Church, with its medieval Pietà, Mary awkwardly clutching a crucified son twice her size. Leaving, I stumble almost immediately on another church, through an archway hewn, like the building beyond, from the region’s distinctive grey-white stone. I marvel at the precision and detail of


St-Jean de Joigny, set high on a hill with superb views down to the river, built long before machinery made things simpler. Inside, the ceiling is intricately carved and there’s an extraordinary, 16th-century marble sepulchre, seven life-size figures gathered in mourning around the dead Christ. More remarkable is the fact that my 10-minute walk back to the hotel passes another church, this one in the Place du Pilori, where guilty townsfolk were once placed in the stocks to be pelted by their righteous neighbours. It’s a reminder that many aspects of the present are an improvement on the past. But no medieval peasant here, even if


surrounded by churches, could have doubted the importance of Auxerre, just 20 miles away: the pale might of Saint-Étienne


106 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel


Cathedral rises dramatically above the clustered houses and flat, green fields. It would’ve been the largest building most of them ever saw, and its grandeur, as I cross the Yonne into the city, is still breathtaking. I stroll around, admiring stained-glass windows (some dating back to the 13th century) and a marble Joan of Arc, pious on her knees — apparently, she took a break from battling the English to pray here in 1429. Really, I think, running my finger discreetly


down the cathedral’s white stone, it all comes back to land. That’s what Joan was fighting for; that’s what the monks devoted themselves to, learning the differences between each tiny plot and nurturing the vines accordingly. (In fact, there’s a local story that says they used to lick the soil to understand the difference in flavours in this, the world’s most piecemeal wine region.) I realise this very earth is what these buildings are hewn from, too: this calcaire d’Auxerre rock is the same limestone found in the soil, all that remains of an ancient sea. As I drive on, the villages with their pale stones glow like ghosts in the gloaming.


Acquired tastes These vines predate the monasteries — in fact, they probably predate Christianity, since some were already being regulated on the orders of the Roman emperors in the first century AD. But it was much later, when a monastery was built and the pious began donating vineyards to ensure their place in heaven, that the town


of Chablis and its surrounding lands became synonymous with great white wine. With its wide streets and small shops,


Chablis is very pretty, but aſter the glare of sunshine on all those pale buildings, it’s a relief to step inside Baptiste Bienvenu’s cool, modern tasting rooms, Caves Bienvenu. I try a few wines, buy more than I can afford, then settle at a high table with a glass of Pinot Noir from nearby Irancy, Baptiste’s home village, and a heaped plate of excellent charcuterie. But it’s later in Dijon — once the capital


of a duchy that was not only separate from France but arguably more powerful — that Burgundy’s two great themes of spirituality and gastronomy truly present themselves. Here, too, there’s a vast cathedral, while in the sprawling ducal palace, the Musée des Beaux-Arts holds relics, giant altarpieces and the delicately sculpted marble tombs of two long-dead noblemen, their effigies’ hands folded in prayer. Then there are the medieval, porcelain eating implements and a silver-and-wood cup said to have been used by Saint Bernard. I pause to think of the monks sitting down in their refectory aſter a hard day’s pruning and praying, and liſting a cup of wine to their lips with exactly the same sensation of anticipation we feel today. With its roofs a festival of brightly


coloured tiles, and food stalls spilling out onto the surrounding cobblestones from its vast covered food market, Dijon is a city of strong hues and flavours.


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