September 8, 1993
To Semur-en-Auxois
I awoke today greatly relieved - not only is the sky blue, revealing a beautiful view of the valley below our hotel - but I don't seem to be getting sick after all. I awoke several times in the night with a worsening sore throat - just the sort of feeling I've gotten often in recent years which has worsened and lingered on for weeks. After a long nights rest though, I feel fine.
Vezelay is an astonishing place, now that I can see it. Perched high on a knoll above the surrounding farmlands, it is a medieval city with a wondrous Romanesque cathedral at its core (ed: it's not a cathedral; this must have been the great Vezelay Abbey, now a UNESCO world heritage site). The whole town feels like a museum. Its narrow cobblestone streets are mostly free of cars. Roads intersect and bend at crazy angles, with stone and beam houses crowding the street on both sides. Everything about it is picturesque - the view of the countryside from the top of the town, as well as the city as a whole when seen from a distance.
From Vezelay we enjoyed ten miles of lovely, hilly Burgundy countryside, passing through colorful villages on our way to Avallon. We loitered quite a while in Avallon, visiting boulangeries and its own fine cathedral (ed: this must have been the church of Saint-Lazare; it looks like I didn't know what a cathedral was exactly twenty five years ago) before heading east again at about two. We decided to make this more or less a rest day, and planned to ride only 30 or 40 miles - partly to recover from yesterday, but also because there is so much to see.
In We made good time all the way from Avallon to Semur-en-Auxois, except for allowing photostops at Grillon and Epoisses. The country is gradually seeming hillier - we are in general crossing watersheds of a series of small rivers and streams. It is beautiful all the way - suggestive of parts of the Willamette Valley but accented with stone and red tiled villages.
We arrived in Semur at four, just in time for the first drops from a sky which had been gradually darkening all afternoon. We fairly quickly found a modest hotel (190 ff, w/douche) and then wandered out to explore. Semur is another town which warrants a lot of time. It includes a massive, walled fortress with four turrets, perched high up on a rocky bluff of a gooseneck meander of the Armancon River. It too has its own impressive gothic cathedral (ed: nope, not this one either. This would be the church of Norte Dame). It's hard to know how to talk about these after awhile - it is fascinating to see how different each one is from the others) and is spectacular from a distance.
We ended up in a café about seven and ordered a variety of exotic servings, including a chocolate mousse and plum tart for dessert. Stuffed, resolved to get an earlier start for the ride to Dijon tomorrow, we headed back to the room, beating another impressive thunderstorm by about a half hour.
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 250 km (155 miles)
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