Burgundy

After our quick stop to Champagne which you can read about here, we headed to Etaule to spend a night in a hotel called La Cimentelle. I had done quite a bit of research before booking this because I really wanted to find a quintessential French place to stay (preferably a chateau) with amazing food. La Cimentelle was exactly this type of place and my sister (and I) were pretty impressed when we drove up and saw this!

La Cimentelle is based around an old cement factory. These buildings surrounding the main hotel (seen below) are not in use any more but they added to the charm of the amazing grounds which also included a lake.

Stephane and Nathalie were great hosts and we had dinner there that night which was prepared by Stephane, who followed a Paul Bocuse training course. Dinner was an outstanding 4 course meal served with unlimited wine and featured cuisine typical of the Burgundy area. The dining area was set up next to the kitchen so we could see Stephane at work. The stand out for me was the entree of Ouefs en Meurette, eggs poached in a concentrated sauce of red wine, stock and vegetables. Duck was served as the main and a chocolate souffle for dessert. We were so impressed with our stay here. I think after a week staying in apartments it was really nice to relax properly in a lovely clean hotel and to not have to think about dinner or breakfast! The rooms had the most amazing beds (although not hard to improve on our London ones). The bathroom was so spacious and L'Occitane products were supplied which was a treat.

We reluctantly left here the next morning after a great sleep and made our way back to Switzerland making a few stops on the way. Our first stop was Beaune which is the unofficial capital of the wine region called the Cote D'Or. It's often mentioned as one of the best places in France to do wine tasting but unfortunately as we were on a tight schedule to get home we didn't have much time to do this. We did stop at Olivier Leflaive, a vineyard that we knew and stocked up on some bottles here before driving home.

Driving through Burgundy was really stunning with vineyards everywhere you turn. Again, this is another place that I definitely want to visit again, but when I have more time to cruise around Sideways style!