Wednesday, May 18, 2022 - Squeezing in Semur before packing up

 Today is our last day in Burgundy. I don't know how this day came so fast. But we have time to fit in a half-day excursion to Sémur before packing up and cleaning up. And one last dinner out at L'Auberge de Guillaume. 

Sémur-en-Auxois is about a half-hour north of us and an easy drive on a 4-lane highway. 

Built on top of a granite outcropping above the River Armançon, Sémur was fortified in the 1400s during the 100 Years War. Today, it still has 4 defensive towers and ramparts around the city. 

Many of its streets maintain a medieval attitude and the town celebrates this history each year in May with a medieval festival, this year on May 14 & 15. (We didn't go - Crowds would be large and Covid is still a thing, although I see many here who continue to wear masks in crowds, indoors or outdoors.) 

We found parking near the church, so explored that first. 

chancel

tapestry on right side of chancel

plaster seems to be flaking off the roof - a net has been strung to catch what falls (presumably so no one gets hit with falling debris

stained glass installed 1927 - in memory of American troops who fell in WWI "and of whom the greater part rest in France" (plaque explaining the window)

nave

front of church still festooned from the weekend festival

I found this carving intriguing. not a gargoyle, just a carving along the roof 

these flowers grow out of stone everywhere - this is high on the church steeple

Collegiate Church Notre Dame from rear

Then we made our way to the tourist office where we got maps that guided us around the city, pointing out places of interest. 

brass markers in the road pointed toward a site marked on the map

this sign in the main entry gate says: "The Semurians are very pleased to make the acquaintance of strangers"

city gate

From a park along the ramparts, the lower city stretches out along the river

The ramparts (Clark Hunsinger photo)

the park along the ramparts - a shady spot to rest

We seemed to be stalking the mail delivery lady as we crisscrossed paths with her most of the tour of the upper city. 

A bicycle is much more practical on these narrow streets, as a truck would block traffic and take longer to navigate the streets. 

The tour finished below the castle walls, via several long sets of stairs which were not scooter friendly. I found a route via roads that met them at the bottom. Dave, Janis, and Clark went up to get the car to pick me up down below,  so that I they wouldn't need to push me up the hill. While they got the car, I had a quick look around, seeing mostly postcard views looking up at the church and fortress gates. 

We headed home to eat lunch, clean up, put things back where they were before we moved them, and cleaning. We never did catch the mouse. Oh, the mouse - About a week ago we had left tomatoes out near the window in the kitchen. The next morning, something had chewed a large hole in one of them. We guessed a mouse, bought a couple of traps, and baited them with some lovely French cheese. Which the mouse seemed to like because we would hear the snap of the trap going off. On inspection, the cheese was gone and so was the (assumed) mouse. One day we forgot and left a loaf of bread out on that same table and when we returned home, yup, our presumed mouse had eaten one end. The owners got involved, setting live traps - little cages that would close behind the mouse. They put them in several rooms, but still no mouse. But several more sprung traps over the days. So we donated our mouse traps to the effort, leaving the capture of the presumed mouse to the owners. 

Part of the afternoon's clean up involved taking all the wine bottles that Clark had saved to the recycling container just around the corner from our house. Dave took a panorama of the collection which included 89 empty bottles (65 unique, 24 duplicates) costing an average of just under $15/bottle. (I'll leave the math to you.) 

panorama of the wine bottle collection

Dinner reservations were for 7 pm. It's was a beautiful evening and we were invited out to the patio behind the restaurant. We started by ordering a nice bottle of wine, a $50 Givry Premier Cru. (We were celebrating our last night in Burgundy with a splurge.) While we were the second group there, the patio tables were soon all filled, everyone drinking some sort of cocktail or wine. However, no one was getting a menu. We were puzzled and concerned that the wine was really delicious, easy to drink, and we had planned to make that bottle last through dinner. But we were losing the battle. Finally, people who had arrived after us began leaving. We were more confused and pulled the waiter over to ask for a menu. "Oh, no," he told us, "Dinner is served in the dining room. This is just for aperitifs." 

Lynn, Janis, Clark on patio behind restaurant - lovely shady and park-like spot

Well, we wasted no time going back into the dining room, where we were ushered to our table. Our wine glasses and the bottle were delivered promptly to our table and so was a menu. And, low and behold, seated at tables were all the people who had got up to leave. We didn't know the code, but all the French diners did. (Sheepish smile) The dinner menu was different than the last time we ate here. This time we were served a salad of asparagus, greens, pistachios, and croutons in a melt-in-your-mouth good dressing. We had leg of lamb with potatoes and seasonal vegetables for the main course. We all wanted to lick our plates. So we used French bread to mop up every last drop of the wonderful gravy. For dessert, we all chose the strawberries with sorbet of crême fraiche and raspberry and raspberry coulis (sauce). Oh, and we ordered a second bottle of Givry because it was a lot cheaper than Dave's suggestion that we order a $190 bottle of Clos Vougeot. 

As Dave says, you only live once. And tomorrow we start a new adventure to a place I've never visited before: Brittany. But our house isn't available until Saturday, so we'll take a couple days to get there, stopping halfway to explore the Loire Valley town of Loches.