Hello! Sorry that this post took so long! I haven’t been able to get WiFi. I’ll try to remember what has happened these last couple of days!

On Saturday morning, we took our long awaited trip to the Eiffel Tower. We climbed up 700 stairs to get to the second floor. You can get all the way to the tippy top by taking an elevator up but we didn’t feel the need for that because you can get a good view from the second floor. One person only made it up to the first floor, have fun guessing who:)

For our last stop in Paris, we started at the Arc De Triomphe and walked down Champs-Elysees. We stopped in some stores, including the famous department store, Galeries Lafayette.

After we said our final goodbyes to our hotel and Paris, we got into our rental car and headed to our next stop, Vézelay which was about a 3 hour drive. But don’t fear, we broke up our trip with a stop at a Château called Vaux-le-Vicomte. We weren’t planning on staying too long, but we got carried away it was so beautiful. First, we took an AMAZING audio tour through the inside of the castle. Who knew an audio tour could be so high-tech? It had 3D audio and the whole tour was a story told by characters from the castle’s time. Each room was the next part of the story with informational tidbits woven in. Besides from the actual Chateau, the place had beautiful gardens and fountains. We got to take a golf cart all around the place which was lots of fun.

We arrived in Vézelay at dinner time and dropped of our stuff at our airbnb. It was very pretty with a huge garden in the backyard, but not the most luxurious place. The village of Vézelay was a walled medieval town, built up on a hill. Today, it is very quiet but still a nice place to visit. In the morning, we walked around the small village (really one street up the hill, and one street down). We walked into a really old church on the top of the hill and they were actually in the middle of a service! Still there were a few tourists walking around during the mass.

After lunch in Vézelay, we got back on the road and took a 2 hour drive to Beaune. Now we are definitely in “wine country”. We are staying above a wine bar, in a really spacious apartment! Beaune is much bigger than Vézelay and in the heart of Burgundy. We had signed up to be toured around by a “greeter”, someone who lives in Beaune and volunteers to give a tour. After a little mix up, we found out our greeter was going to give us a tour in a small village 5 minutes away where he lived. Our guide was originally from the U.K. and moved to Burgundy to retire. He said he had always loved France. He took us around his tiny village surrounded by wine vineyards. He said everyone who lives there either owns a vineyard or is retired. It’s a small village where he knows everyone and plays organ in the local church. He’s even a representative in their village level government. 160 people live in this particular village, but there are many little villages just like this one throughout Burgundy.

Lastly, we had dinner at what might have been our favorite place yet. Super nice atmosphere with DELICIOUS food. We tried escargot for the first time! We’ve also had a hard time communicating with some people here because not a lot of people speak English, whereas in Paris there were more English speaking people. Ok, more tomorrow! Au revoir!