Monday October 24, Chalon sur Saone, France

We strongly considered continuing our drive around Lac Leman through Chaminoix as Christoph had suggested, but when we saw a layer of clouds and fog hiding the mountaintops we opted to drive on toward Paris. First we had to backtrack to Geneva, and then we worked our way north on some of the very nice French toll roads. The road in this region was a mixture of bridges and tunnels similar to the Autostrada on the Italian Riviera and the scenery was beautiful. We also took time to occasionally get off and drive the 2-lane country roads. The speed limit on those country roads is 90 kilometers per hour rather than the 130 kph maximum on the toll roads, and you have to frequently slow down for towns (and occasional farm wagons!), but it was so scenic that I would highly recommend driving through the French countryside in the fall if you ever get a chance.

All the country we drove through on our way to Paris was almost unbearably pretty. The Alps and their foothills have, of course, one type of beauty, but the farmlands, vineyards, and small towns further north were also quite interesting.

The towns were not, however, scenic in the same way as the Tidy Towns of Ireland we saw during Wanderung 9. The Tidy Towns are neat, clean, and painted in vivid pastels. The small, provincial French towns rather have an old, weathered ambiance that is more smoke-stained and dingy, but curiously appealing. Along the way we saw more of the unexpected French roadside sculpture including a 20-foot tall stainless steel rooster that marked "The Route of The Rooster" we were driving on at the time. Now there's something you don't see every day!

Finding diesel fuel at 1.05 Euro per liter, cheap for diesel fuel in France, we filled the car and then stopped off at an Aldi store in Chalon sur Saone to buy some groceries and put up for the night. Aldi also had a great deal on a big electric disk sander, but it was a 240-volt model and that plus an unexpected influx of rationality prevented me from buying it on the spot. After all, I argued with myself, I still had a 240-volt "Bohrhammer" (hammer-drill) from Aldi acquired during Wanderung 5 in Germany that I don't know what to do with. We did stock up on chocolate, meat, cheese, and bread for dinner plus some water, wine and snacks. It is rather reassuring that Aldi really is the same store whether it is in Germany, France, Ireland, or the United States, even down to the layout of the aisles. Near the middle of Chalon sur Saone we found another Ibis hotel were we stopped for the day.

After resting a bit we were re-energized enough to drive into the center of the old town to take a city walk. Once again we were limited by the parking ticket machines to having just 1 hour to see the town, so we headed off down what looked like the main commercial street. I was looking for architecturally interesting buildings to photograph and therefore somewhat oblivious to the content of the stores, but Monika paid more attention to that. Along 4 blocks of shops and boutiques, she found only one bookstore but at least three lingerie shops, which seemed to confirm the cultural predilections that we had first seen in Nice a few days back.

We turned off the commercial drag into the old town, and that's where I found quite a few more interesting buildings. I was particularly intrigued by the old half-timber buildings because I had always associated that construction with old English buildings of about Shakespeare's time rather than French architecture. These buildings were definitely old, and that raised the issue of which culture developed the half-timber method of construction first, or whether that was basically a Europe-wide development. I was sure Christoph could have answered that, but unfortunately he was back in Lausanne so it had to wait.

One large half-timber building was located on a corner and particularly remarkable because that was the first one I had seen where the upper stories jutted out over the street. The upper stories were supported on big knees made from roughly 6" by 6" wood beams, but when thinking about how solid that was you would also have to consider how many centuries old those beams were. They certainly looked plenty old, but beyond that I cannot be certain. Still, that building helped me imagine how the medieval streets and alleys would have been shadowed for most of the day by those overhanging floors.

The old section of town ended at the river Saone, which was surprisingly large. It was definitely navigable at that point as I saw both freight barges and a decent sized tour boat tied up along the quay.

The riverfront also featured a nicely arched bridge that spanned the river and a pretty tower in a park on the other side. The tower had a convoluted history, starting out as a part of the medieval defense system, then being part of a religious complex, moved to some exposition in Paris around the turn of the century, and finally rebuilt on the Saone River in the 1920s with money donated by the American millionaire Frank Jay Gould. Good heavens.

We curled back through the city to our car and hopped in just as the allotted hour elapsed. After the short drive back to the hotel we made dinner from the groceries we had just purchased, and that was when Monika found out that French spreadable cheese was of a very different consistency than German spreadable cheese. When Monika attempted to spread the cheese on bread, it turned out to be as runny and drippy as honey or even more so. The bread, also being French bread, had big holes in it so the liquid cheese ended up all over the bread, all over Monika's hands, and all over the table. I laughed until I tried the cheese myself and found out just how difficult it was to keep under control; that cheese had a mind of its own! After that unexpectedly exciting dinner, I read while Monika processed pictures for a couple of hours. But we still managed to wrap everything up and hit the sack by 10 o'clock, so we both had a decent night's sleep.