July 29, 2012

French Villages: TOURNUS


From time to time, I want to feature some of my favorite villages of France.  First up is TOURNUS, a village in Southern Burgundy just north of Lyon not far from Macon.  Why this one, you say?  Well, on our treks north to Lorraine and on to Belgium, this is always our first stop.  It is one of the few locations off the auto route where there are gas stations at the exit. Plus fuel is 10-11 centimes cheaper per liter than at the auto route service areas.  And as you will see, it is a beautiful place to take a break.  Let's go.

Street into the village  leads to the 11th century church  
St. Philibert.


Crypt (upper left) is one of the most beautiful I have seen.

Below:  the cloister


Our jaunt through the village always takes us past beautifully restored places....


..... and finally to a stop at the artisanal boucherie where we can purchase a hard to find Saucisse de Morteau, a smoked sausage not from this area but from the Franche-Comté region...

Great saucisses et saucissons but look at the nice Bresse chicken in the upper right photo (first one on the left)....

In the end, we find ourselves on the Saone River....time for lunch...

I know, I know....lunch looks kinda meager, but we still have a long drive ahead of us......However, we have usually made a stop at the patisserie during our walk .. no yummy desserts this day....it was exceptionally closed ....c'est dommage!



2 comments:

  1. it almost looks like they knew you were coming and made everything beautiful .. but alas i'm sure its that way all the time. thanks for posting. looking forward to more villages.

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  2. Already, I am loving this series... so when is the next installment? Can't wait to see more. I know, I know: you have so much free time to put these together, right? But we all want to learn and see more!!

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