About staying in gîtes in France

Walt and I started traveling around in France together in the late 1980s. The first time we ever stayed in a gîte was in 1993, when we went to spend two weeks in Provence to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had both lived in Paris a decade earlier — me for three years, and Walt for one. That's where we met each other and became friends. Between 1982 and 1993, we lived for four years in Washington DC and 6 years in San Francisco. We didn't return to France until 1988, when I went to Grenoble on a work junket and Walt flew over to spend three or four days in Paris with me, for old time's sake. (The first time we rented an apartment for a stay in Paris was in 1994.)

Berzé-le-Châtel is a fortress that dates back to the 10 century A.D. It's located just three or four miles south of the famous town town of Cluny in Burgundy. We just saw it from a distance. I'd like to go back there again...

In June of 1993, we flew to Paris to spend two or three nights in a hotel there before driving down to Provence. It was so hot that we cut the Paris visit short, leaving after just one sleepless night. The hotel we were in didn't have air-conditioning. We thought it would be cooler out in the country. Our first stops were in Fontainebleau and Provins, which were places we had visited together in 1982. In Provins we bought some strawberries to have along with a picnic lunch. We ate lunch on a park bench in Chablis, near Auxerre. Those were the best strawberries I had ever tasted. The weather was hot there too but it was less oppressive than in Paris.

The Château de Sercy is a 12th century fortified building located in the village of Sercy (pop. 102) about a dozen miles north of Cluny and not far from the town called Mâcon. Neither Berzé nor Sercy seems to have an English language Wikipedia article, but both are on French Wikipédia (Berzé, Sercy).

I think we also went to Vézelay and climbed up the hill to the huge church at the top of the town. Then we spent the night in Dijon. The next day we drove south on little roads, still headed toward the gîte we had reserved in Provence. We passed these two châteaux along the way. I happened to find these two photos that Walt, probably, took back then. I wasn't taking pictures at that point. I had a film camera, but I didn't use it much. I was always slightly disappointed with the pictures I took after I had them developed. Walt has a lot of slides, I think, from that 1993 trip. I might have some too. I'll have to go search for them.