Bonjour everyone! This week was full of studying for me! From cafes, to our residence director’s office, to the university I think I found every available study spot in Grenoble, but I knew I needed to study a lot during the week because I wouldn’t study during our trip this weekend (i was right!). Thursday night we did take a break from all our studying to watch a very famous string duo play at a musée in Grenoble. The cellist had played for the New York, London, and Paris symphonies and the violinist also studied at London and Paris. They were absolutely incredible, and it was a great break from studying. They were also both females (girl power!) i forget their names, but it was absolutely amazing!
Now we are heading home from a busy busy weekend in Bourgogne (Burgundy). The first stop we made was to the medieval town of Pérouges, France. It’s the most well-kept and authentic medieval town in all of France! It was absolutely beautiful, I loved it so much, I felt like I was in a movie! Side note: many movies are shot there because there are only 80 permanent residents in the whole town so there’s not a lot of traffic and the beautiful stone and medieval architecture makes the village perfect for a movie scene. Pérouges is very much a town that thrives on tourism with over 3 million tourists a year, but part of that is thanks to the American President, Bill Clinton! We got to see the Liberty tree (one of the very few left in France, a lot were cut down when Napoleon 3 took power because they symbolized the République... something he did not like) where Clinton gave a famous speech in 1996 or 97, I can’t remember! Then we got to taste a special cake of the region, it was amazing! I loved the town of Pérouges a lot and I recommend it for anyone going to France who likes small towns over big cities.
After Pérouges we made a pit stop at a famous « bubbly wine » museum. They are not allowed to call it champagne in Burgundy because this is a region known for its wines, not champagne... isn’t that interesting? The museum was very interesting to learn about the history of « champagne » in France, and it was a woman who created this museum (girl power!)! We got to taste the champagne at the end, and I thought it was spectacular. After that we traveled to the gorgeous city of Dijon, France. We got there kind of late so we didn’t have much time to explore Saturday night, but we did have dinner at a very famous restaurant that offered many specialities of the region (escargot, beef, and volaille) to name a few. Unfortunately, Burgundy is a region that loves their meats, so I wasn’t able to try much of the food, but it was cool to see all my friends eat it! My vegetable casserole was very good also :)
Sunday morning we did get to have a guided tour of Dijon, viewing the beautiful Cathedral, the famous statue, and their museums. Did you know that Gustave Eiffel and the man who built the Arc de Triomphe both lived in Dijon, even though their most famous sculptures are in Paris? Cool right! Dijon is also a city known for its mustard, and although I do not like mustard, I did buy some for family and friends. Finally, we traveled to the city of Bournes, France which is known for it’s wine vineyards and very expensive, good wine. We were fortunate enough to tour one of their famous wine cellars (Patriarche) and try 10 different wines! They were all very good, but I did prefer the white wines over the red. Finally, we had an audio tour of the Hôtel Dieu which was the city’s first hospital back in the day. It was very interesting to learn about ancient medical practices and see this well-kept hospital. Although, the hospital was free to all (yay for Medicare!), the instruments were obviously not as advanced as they are now, so let’s just say I definitely would not want to be a patient in a medieval hospital😂. We are on our way back to Grenoble later than expected which does stink because we have midterms this week, but Burgundy was totally worth it! I’ll be staying up a little later than normal to study and prepare, but luckily I only have one midterm tomorrow. Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoy my pictures and videos😊
Rachel