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.

 

More Noyers houses and information

Noyers-sur-Serein (the official name of the village is just Noyers) is one of the plus beaux villages de France, as is nearby Vézelay. The Wikipédia article about Noyers includes two good photos of the village that I wish I had taken: this one and this one. Below are some more of my photos.

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Just outside the village are the ruins of the medieval château-fort de Noyers that protected the town from attack for centuries, until it was mostly torn down in 1599 by order of king Henri IV of France. I just read that the château ruins can be explored by visitors, and from there they can take in beautiful views of the village and its surroundings. Now I really want to go back to Noyers again.

Picturesque, serene, medieval Noyers

Possibly the most picturesque and carefully maintained medieval villages in northern Burgundy is called Noyers-sur-Serein. It was a very short drive (10 minutes) south of Môlay, the village were were staying in. The population of Noyers (pronounced nwah-'yehr) is about 600, and there are about 500 housing units in the village. Seventy-eight houses in the village are officially listed as monuments historiques, most of them dating back to the 15th century. A third of the houses in Noyers are weekend or vacation places for their owners. Fifteen houses there are for sale right now. Today I'll just post a few photos I took there nearly seven years ago.

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Cravant en Bourgogne

Not all of the Irancy AOC grape-growing area is within the boundaries of the commune d'Irancy. Some of it is on the territory of the little town of Cravant, which is home to nearly 900 people. The town of Cravant has preserved many of its old houses and town gates, as well as its donjon (fortified tower) and beffroi (bell tower).

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There was a battle here in 1423, toward the end of the 100 Years' War, in which allied Burgundian and English forces defeated and massacred an army of 4,500 French and Scottish soldiers. Cravant had a population of 5,000 in the Middle Ages and was a major port on the Yonne river, shipping large quantities of wood and wine to Paris on barges and rafts.