Wet & soggy in Bourgogne

Day 11  Friday 4th October 2013

Amazingly it is still dry.  We had been expecting rain & so far only a brief shower during last night.  The overnight stop, Le Pinede en Provence, was the busiest site to date, but also one of the cheapest.  The clientele seemed to ranged from those who were using the campsite as a base to tour the area, others as an overnighter between either heading south or returning north.  

The pitches were located under the shade of tall pines with hard standing & electrics.  The site also had a small restaurant [closed], swimming pool, bar with wifi [2 euros for 24hrs], & shop with on-site bakery with bread  & croissant available to order.  There was a good selection of nationalities here, though mainly Dutch & German & everyone was all very friendly bar the campervan, complete with kayaks & trailer, parked next to us.  The couple, sorry can't remember which country they came from never spoke once, either to us or to each other, the nearest to the sound of speech came when the chap brought out his battered guitar & began singing. They did leave pretty early on the friday morning. 

As to us, with the weather looking ok for the time being, we made our departure, filling up with diesel before rejoining the autoroute northwards.  Today's travelling was going to be autoroute, straight up the A7, passing Lyon & continuing to Beaune where we would  leave the motorway & head to Meursault & an overnight stop.

The scenery up through France was dramatic especially the mountains to the east of us as we left Provence. Unfortunately, once past Chalon sur Saone, the countryside disappeared beneath low cloud as the rain kicked in.

It was still raining as we turned off the autoroute.  The first thing to note is that this is a serious, grown up wine region. Wineries, grapes, caves in profusion, the Bourgogne wine region & harvest in full swing despite the awful weather.  The vineyards all had large numbers of workers picking the grapes by hand, no signs of any grape harvesting machinery & interestingly, all the fields were surrounded by stone walls with large  wine chateaux in profusion. 

It was decidedly damp as we drove into the camping site, which was boozily called, La Grappe d'Or, a very picturesque site, built on terraces with views across the busy vineyard towards the pretty village of Meursault, well, it would be once the rain stopped.  The reception was closed at this time so we went & parked on a vacant hard standing pitch which would, we hope when the visibility improved, provide us with that view, the vineyard, village & church.

We were eventually found by Madame who relieved us of 16 euros in cash, as the site didn't accept card payments for under 40 euros.   l looked, but didn't buy the wine on offer here.  Most sites offer local wine of some description for not more than 5 or 6 euros, here the wines on offer were in excess of 20 euros.

Today's mileage = 223 miles