The Back Roads of Burgundy: The area of Burgundy I'm now in is quite a surprise to me. My picture of Burgundy has always been the vineyards and chateaux of the Cote d'Or, producers of some of the most famous wines in the world. But this is another Burgundy. Vineyards are few and far between. Forests and farm land dominate the area. Cows out number cars and, on the road, beetles (the black crawling kind, not the 4-wheeled German kind) out number bikes. The Lonel...

The Route to Vezelay- On Saturday I took the train from Dijon to Auxerre where the Lonely Planet Burgundy route officially begins. Auxerre to Noyer-sur-Serein and Noyer to Vezelay are the first two day's routes. I would have liked to spend more time in Auxerre, but the French rail system did me in. My route from Dijon required two trains, one about an hour long and the other less than 15 minutes. The first train was no issue and the second train left the statio...

Dijon Deja Vu: I was in Dijon several years ago on another Blue Marble bike trip. As I was riding into Dijon yesterday, I was trying to remember what the city was like. Sadly, I've been on enough bike trips that they start to run together and I really couldn't remember much about Dijon So as I've been walking around the last two days, I keep having déja vu moments... oh, yeah, I've seen that before! Surprisingly enough, by chance, I even wound up in the same h...

Roughing it in France: Today's story actually started 3 weeks ago in Paris. Friend Nicolas introduced me to travel writer Ethan. Ethan is working on updating the Lonely Planet Cycling Guide to France. But he's running out of time to verify and update all the routes created 10 years ago. Would I be able to help? He could pay some of my expenses. What? You'll pay me to ride my bike? In France? How could I say no? Why would I say no? So, I signed up to ride the Bu...

Churches of Beaujolais: The last two days were spent cycling through Beaujolais. As I was riding along I was struck by the variety of church styles, colors, shapes and sizes. The first ones I saw as I left Lyon were a gray granite and reminded me of churches in the midwest. As I got further into Beaujolais the choice of stone became an amazing yellow. I don't think I've ever seen that color in stone before. The churches in small towns were, of course smaller tha...