Autun

Overslept a little this day, think it was the wine from the previous night. Not to mention my little cottage can get so dark when I close up the shutters that at 8am you might think it's still 2am! After breakfast we would be visiting another medival town, Autun, which was actually a Roman settlement. The Romans had a great influence in France and it was actually them who introduced viticulture to the country.

Autun was quite pretty, I immediately preferred it to Beaune. Possibly as there was a market taking place in the town square with all the food stalls and clothing stalls, meat hung from hooks and cheese from young to mouldy, and whole plucked chooks were displayed. The Burgundians love their meat, as one of Sue's neighbours proclaimed when Sue informed her I was vegitarain.

'What is she doing in Burgundy then?!?!', she'd asked. Haha. We visited to St Leger Cathedral whose steps boasted fossilized sea shells, etc. It also had the traditional Burgundian tiled roof and many carved sculptures depicting certain scenes inside. It was very beautiful, especiallyw ith its Astrological dsplay at the entrance.

We drove over to the lake where we enjoyed a pizza for lunch, after a slight translation mishap and my vegie pizza came out with meat on it. Whoops!! We took a walk along the lake and around the back to visit the old Roman Amphitheatre. It is very well preserved and they were preparing for the annual Roman celebration weekend, which would display chariot racing etc. The people of Autun it seems are very proud of their heritage.

On the way to the amphitheatre however, I got quite a shock at some persons private animal collection. In a paddock I admired a horse and a pony, then stopped in shock when I realised that their other companion was an Australian Emu!! Haha, what was he doing in France? And in a region that gets very heavy snow during the winter!! Crazy. The emu even got anxious when the horse and pony were taken away for feeding, he obviously suffers from separation anxiety.. hahaha. It was hilarious. This man's house also boasts a giant snail crawling up the side of the brickwork. Interesting sort of fellow I suppose!!

On our way back from Autun, Rich and Sue treated me to a visit of a Chateaux that we'd seen poking through the trees on our drive to Autun. It's called the Chateaux de Sully and is magnificent. We just wandered around the outside admiring the building and it's gardens. It's still a private residence with an interesting background and history. Wouldn't have minded living there.. well maybe in retirement, there's not much surrounding it!

That night back at Rich and Sues we had a fairly light dinner, as we were full from pizza and the previous evenings BBQ! So we snacked instead on cheeses, french bread, sweet cherry tomatoeswine. and grapes, washed down of course with some more red wine! Was a really food day, Autun a very old town, is beautiful.