Bike: Dijon to Châteauneuf-en-Auxois, 32 miles, 1400feet of climb
Accommodation: OBois Dormant (O Sleeping Wood) Chateauneuf (Booking.com). B&B suite in a 16th-century building with private bath, breakfast included.
We left Dijon on the Tour de Bourgogne a Velo 51, following the canal, and we stayed on it all day until we got to Chateuneuf. It was a beautiful day, the route was almost flat, we saw sheep and cows and donkeys and farms and maisons and chateaus and trees and boats and locks and lock houses. O my.
Along the way, we kept leap-frogging another couple on bicycles, and we finally stopped and talked to them. They were from Switzerland and were just biking for a week along the canal. Theirs was a last-minute trip, and they had trouble finding accommodations open. I had the same trouble when we booked the first week of July. It turns out this weekend is France's Heritage Days. All the national monuments, including the chateaus, are open and free of charge.
Luckily, we had scored a room in Chateauneuf, which is a little medieval village with a fantastic chateau and three good restaurants. When we checked in to our B&B, just a block from the chateau (and from everything else in the tiny village), our host offered to make reservations for us at her favorite of the three restaurants. That was lucky too; by the time we arrived when the restaurant opened at 19:00, it was fully booked.
We got to Chateauneuf in time to visit the chateau, which was stunning. It was delightful to go through without the crushing crowds we found at Versailles and the other more well-known chateaus on the Loire. We took our time, read the descriptions (offered in English), and finished with a ramble around the little village.
We had a wonderful meal with fresh local ingredients. Our room at the B&B was spacious and decorated in the style of the era of the building--1600s. We spent an entire afternoon and night immersed in medieval times.
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| Ducks napping on the canal. |
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| Ken biking along the canal. |
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| Chateauneuf -en-Auxios. |
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| Chateauneuf-en-Auxios was built mostly from the 15th century to the 18th century. |
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| View from a window in the Chateauneuf Chateau. |
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| The lord's private apartments (15th century). |
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| The apartments (17th century). |
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| A bedchamber (18th century). |
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| View of the chapel from the courtyard of the chateau. |
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| O Bois Dormant (our B&B) on the right. The red door leads into a square tower filled with a circular stairway. Our room was on the first floor (European first floor, which is US second floor) in the building on the right, with the open red shutter. |
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| View from the front door of our B&B, looking down toward the chateau. |
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| View from the edge of town, looking down into the valley where we will bike the next day. |
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| Detail of a building in town. |
