... And Grapes

After a nice break for lunch at our apartment, we decided to take a scenic drive through the vineyards south of Beaune, while the kids napped in the car.  This turned out to be a great idea after a morning exploring Beaune and playing in the park.  The kids slept blissfully unaware of the 'boring' drive we were taking them on.  

The scenery was beautiful and it was so romantic to be driving through such famous vineyards - even with two kids sleeping in the back.   We didn't stop for many photos (if we had, we wouldn't have gotten very far), that is until we reached the tiny town of La Rochepot with its pretty little castle perched on the hill above.

The rolling countryside was studded with pretty little wine-growing villages as we wound our way in and out of the vineyards.

Burgundy is made up of thousands of tiny plots of wine, owned by hundreds of different growers.  The growers then sell their grapes to 'negocients', who blend the wine and bottle it for sale.  For this reason, the roads are lined with stone arches and gateways into each little vineyard, each labeled with the owner's name.

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing the vineyards buzzing with activity.  The grapes are now ripe and pickers have descended on the vineyards in droves. You can tell where they are working by the groups of white trucks and vans lined up on the side of the road next to the vineyard.  Each worker (a lot are foreigners) is assigned a row and as they fill their baskets and buckets with grapes they take them back and empty them into the big bins on the trucks.  It was fascinating to watch.

On our way back to the apartment, we made another stop at the massive supermarket for supper.

Thanks to the presence of the Hotel Dieu (the charity hospital started in 1443), Beaune has a very strong hospital foundation.  The foundation owns the Hotel Dieu (and it's tourism revenues) as well as a large number of vineyards, from which it sells the wine in an annual auction (it has become the largest charity auction in the world).

Unfortunately, we had an opportunity to check out this well-funded hospital later in the evening when a certain two-year-old fell against the wall and cut his head.  The cut wasn't serious but we wanted to have him checked, just to be sure.  We were in and out very quickly and all Noah needed was a liquid bandage (although the doctor suggested he wear a band-aid to protect it).  As you can imagine, we were all very tired when we got back to the apartment (surprisingly, Catherine stayed wide awake but happy through the whole mis-adventure) and everyone went to sleep without a fuss.  Phew!