La Monastille

The road twisted and turned in the green rolling hills as we zoomed deeper into the Burgundian countryside. After a few wrong turns we finally pulled up to Francoise Moine’s bed & breakfast in an18th century house in a small village (well, not exactly a village – its more like a clump of houses at a crossroads).  Francoise opened the door with a smile; good smells of cooking food and an active fireplace wafted out behind her. After being shown to our cute yellow bedroom in the old stone house, we settled in for three nights. The highlights of our stay with Francoise were the dinners at her long wooden dining table. The first night we were the only guests who were a) Not French b) Under the age of 65. Thus, we attracted a lot of curious attention as our fellow diners tried to understand why two young people from bustling Manhattan wanted to vacation in the middle of nowhere in the French countryside, where the only noise in the still air was a mooing cow. Two of the six spoke English well enough to relay the rapid fire questions from the rest of the group and translate our answers– we covered everything from if we voted for Obama to if we ate ducks in the US to what wine we intended to purchase in Burgundy. As Francoise served the cheese course she asked us how many cheeses we have in the US and shared a bon mot from Charles de Gaulle about the abundance of French cheese varieties: “How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?” Staying with Francoise was so special because it was a taste of what life is like in Burgundy and a more personal glimpse of a French home. It was sad to leave…and we can’t wait to return.