Auxerre en Bourgogne

When we flew from San Francisco to Paris with our friend Sue on our way to Provence in Sept. 2001, we decided to drive south from CDG airport for a couple of hours. We were pretty exhausted and jet-lagged by that point. Even so, we drove to northern Burgundy and spent the night in a hotel in the big town of Auxerre (pop. 30K+). I don't remember if we had already reserved rooms or whether we just walked in and asked if two rooms were available. Either way, that's where we stayed. About 10 years later, on one of my car trips with CHM, he and I booked rooms at the same hotel for a night before continuing our drive farther down into Burgundy.

That's the hotel just above, where we stayed. I can't remember whether Walt and I had stayed there before, but I have a memory of a dinner we had in Auxerre some years earlier. We had a delicious bœuf bourguignon (a beef stew made with red wine) in a restaurant right on the riverfront. I believe it was in a brasserie called Le Quai. The river at Auxerre is called l'Yonne. It's considered to be a tributary of the Seine, even though the distance from the point where  the two rivers become one to the source of the Yonne is greater than the distance to the source of the Seine.

In Paris in the 1980s, I knew a family that had lived in Auxerre for many years and then relocated to Paris. I had been to Auxerre with them back then, so I knew the town. Walt and I went back there on another trip to Burgundy in 2014. We were staying in a village not far from the wine town called Chablis, where tasty wines are made from Chardonnay grapes.

This is the cathdral in Auxerre. It's dedicated to saint Étienne (Saint Stephen). By the way, the X in Auxerre is pronounced as an S — it's [oh-SEHR]. It's a town I would seriously consider moving to if Walt and I ever decide to leave Saint-Aignan and move to a city again. I'd also consider Tours, Blois, and Bourges.

Us in Auxerre in September 2001

I could have sworn that I had posted this photo before, but I can't find it on the blog anywhere. I had a hard time finding the photo at all. It was taken in September 2001, and it was on an old CD that I found by accident on my desk a couple of days ago. It was posting recently about Auxerre that made me remember it. That's where it was taken, by our friend Sue from California. We were on our way from CDG airport down to Provence to spend a coupld of weeks in a gîte there.

September 2001 in Auxerre, on the way to Provence

When Sue took the picture, only she knew that both of us were it it. Walt was upstairs in our room at the hotel. I was downstairs already. I didn't know he was upstairs looking out the window. He didn't know I was downstairs standing on the porch. The photo was taken with a film camera. Later I scanned it so that I would have a digital copy.

The gîte in Provence where we were staying on 9/11/2001

We had just arrived in Provence when the September 11th terrorist attacks happened in the U.S. It was surreal. That Tuesday, we had spent the day driving around in the Luberon valley, taking in the sights and planning what we'd do for the next two weeks. We hadn't heard any news all day. We got back to the gîte at about 7:30 p.m. to have dinner. I said we ought to turn on the television because it was time for the weather report. We'd see what the week's weather was going to be like. What we saw on the screen was the World Trade Center buildings on fire. We thought we might be watching some kind of action or science fiction movie. Then we slowly realized that it wasn't fiction but fact. We had no way of contacting anybody in the U.S. because all telephone communication was cut off. We didn't have wifi or internet back then. We didn't know when we'd be able to get home again, or if our friends and families were okay.

Auxerre — realities

Here are a few more photos I took in Auxerre back in 2001. Twenty years ago... unbelievable. It's fun to think about making another big life change. Moving back to a city or at least a big town. The reality is, it's going to be a while. As long as we have a dog and a cat, we'll stay here. When the 15-year-old cat is gone, we'll see. Tasha is a barky dog, so it would be hard to live close to neighbors, or in an apartment. For the next five or six years, I'll just have to take care of myself and try stay in good shape so I can deal safely with our two staircases. I'm 72 years old.

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Getting contractors (artisans in French) to show up and do some of the work on the house and yard that we have signed bids on would help my morale a lot. The back yard is a mess, because we've been in waiting mode since last winter and work is not getting done. Walt mows, so that's not bad, but the vegetable garden is a disaster. With all the rain and chilly weather (it's still chilly here) tall weeds have taken over and the tomatoes are rotting on the vine. Oh well... some years are like that. This weekend we got our new kitchen stove. I think Walt plans to post pictures. It's an induction model. Yesterday I cooked an Elizabeth David recipe for pork tenderloin medallions with prunes and a cream sauce — which she says in her book is a specialty of the city of Tours. It was good.

Auxerre in Burgundy

Yesterday I mentioned that Walt and I have talked about what kind of house we would want, and where, if we were to move out of the house we've lived in for 18 years now. Someday we will a house without staircases (we have two here) and with a smaller yard ("garden" if you call it that.

One option would be to stay in the Saint-Aignan area, of course. However, with the Parc Zoologique de Beauval, only a couple of miles from our house, drawing a million or more visitors per year, traffic around here is getting to be an issue. The upside is that property values  in Saint-Aignan are going up. The other option would be to move to a town like Blois or Bourges. Or to go to a new region. Why not Burgundy? And why not a town like Auxerre?

This 2014 photo shows what it's like to drive toward Auxerre — pronounced [oh-SEHR] — from the south.

And here we are arriving in the town in 2014. Auxerre (pop. 35,000) is what I'd call a big town or a small city'.
Blois is bigger, and Bourges is bigger still. Saint-Aignan is far smaller.

The town of Auxerre is located on the banks of the Yonne river, about two hours south of Paris.
The photo above and the two below date from 2001.

It's scenic with all the boats and barges along the riverfront. Chablis, Tonnerre, Irancy, and Noyers —
places I've posted about recently — are just 20 to 30 minutes south by car.

This is one of several churches in Auxerre. I think it's the Cathédrale St-Etienne.

This is the hotel where Walt and I stayed for a night in September 2001. We were on our way to Provence.
And CHM and I had rooms in the same hotel for a night when we drove through Auxerre in 2011
on our way back to Saint-Aignan after one of our trips to Picardy.