Peaceful, rural
Burgundy is
one of the most prosperous regions
in modern France, but for centuries
its powerful dukes remained
independent of the French crown.
During the Hundred Years War, they
even sided with the English, selling
them the captured Joan of Arc. By
the fifteenth century their power
extended over all of Franche-Comté,
Alsace and Lorraine, Belgium,
Holland, Picardy and Flanders, and
their state was the best organized
and richest in Europe, its revenues
equalled only by Venice. It finally
fell to the French kings only when
Duke Charles le Téméraire (the
Bold) was killed besieging Nancy in
1477.
There is evidence everywhere of
this former wealth and power, both
secular and religious: in the dukes'
capital of Dijon , in the
great abbeys of Vézelay and Fontenay
, in the ruins of the monastery of Cluny
(whose abbots' influence was second
only to the pope's), and in the châteaux
of Tanlay and Ancy .
Because of its monastic
foundations, Burgundy became - along
with Poitou and Provence - one of
the great church-building areas in
the Middle Ages. Practically every
village has its Romanesque church,
especially in the country around
Cluny and Paray-le-Monial. It is
hard not to believe that this had
something to do with the reminders
of its own illustrious Roman past,
so visible in the substantial Roman
remains at Autun . And the
record goes back further: Bibracte
, on the atmospheric hill of Mont-Beuvray,
was an important Gallic capital, and
Alésia was the scene of
Julius Cæsar's epic victory over
the Gauls in 52 BC. In more modern
times the rustic backwater of Le
Creusot became a powerhouse of
the Industrial Revolution, with the
manufacture of railway engines,
artillery pieces and nuclear
boilers, using the ample forests and
iron-ore deposits to fuel the
forges.
For voluptuaries, wine is,
of course, the region's most obvious
attraction, and devotees head
straight for the great vineyards
, whose produce has played the key
role in the local economy since
Louis XIV's doctor prescribed wine
as a palliative - perhaps an
analgesic - for the royal dyspepsia.
If you lack the funds to indulge
your taste for expensive drink, go
in September or October when the vignerons
are recruiting harvesters.
Between bouts of gastronomic
indulgence, you can engage in some
moderate activity: for walkers
there's a wide range of hikes, from
the gentle to the relatively
demanding, in the Parc Régional
du Morvan and the Côte d'Or
. There are also several
long-distance canal paths, which
make great bike trips. As for
the waterways themselves,
aficionados rate most highly the Canal
de Bourgogne and the Canal du
Nivernais , both of which can be
cruised by rented barge; contact the
Comité Régional du Tourisme de
Bourgogne, BP 1602, 21035 Dijon (tel
03.80.50.90.00, fax 03.80.30.59.45, www.burgundy-tourism.com
).
