It was just a short drive from Beaune to Chateau de Meursault. This was a chateau geared towards selling wine, nothing else. While I love wine and I had a poke around the shop, it was all well out of my budget! And I'd just missed a wine tasting tour. So onwards I went.
It was a lovely day for driving, warm, breezy, I had a full box of apricots, some nuts and I'd picked up a sandwich in Beaune (butter, cheese and ham on a tasty baguette - yum!). So I drove down to Chateau de Cormatin to have my lunch in the gardens. Sadly, however, it was closed until 2pm for their lunch break, which was quite frustrating as the town itself was also basically closed. I found a park, ate my sandwich, wandered around trying to kill time, then gave up and got back on the road again.
Next, the plan was to drive through the Pouilly-Fuisse area through to Mâcon. I managed the first part, but when I got to Mâcon, I couldn't find a park. I was having problems with the signage - it was situated right before a turn off, meaning I was invariably in the wrong lane. There were also these odd roundabouts next to other roundabouts! It looked like such a pretty place but it was frustratingly hard to navigate and I was really stressed out. So I kept driving.
I headed to the hilltop town of Oingt, having a bit more success with my navigating and parking! The view was simply incredible - like 360 degree view around the wine-growing regions. I think a lot of tourists miss it, it seemed very quiet.. but for me it was just lovely, I could wander around and take it all in.
Since it was still light, I decided to keep going and spend the night in Lyon. I was running about 2 days behind schedule so decided to stay in Lyon then go again in the morning without venturing into Lyon, since I can easily go back to Lyon from London. To get to the campsite in Lyon, however, I had to drive down these very busy city highways. At this point, I was blasting the air conditioning, concentrating hard on what my GPS was saying, trying to keep the nerves at bay. Just when I was getting stressed again, this car drove up beside me and honked. I looked over, thinking I was going to get some road rage, and the two girls in the car smiled and waved at me. They then changed lanes in front of me, wound down the window, gave me another wave and a thumbs up. I almost cried. I was so grateful for that little gesture.
I made it in one piece to my campsite for the night. It was the night before Bastille Day, so they were having fireworks down the road. But I was content to stay in my van while it poured outside and the beautiful rainbow below appeared in the sky. I drove just under 200km, so I slept very well that night.
