April 26 St Prère et Vasélay

We visit lots of places and take a few pictures of everything. But the weather has us stuck in this spot and we decided to study the town in depth with our camera. The pictures on this section of the blog are all from the same town. The town started out at a salt water spring down the valley that started six thousands years ago during the neolithic period. The town moved up on to a nearby hill as it's fourtunes improved. The move was in response to people trying to rob the town of it's improving fortune. The hill provided a defensable position. The next chapter in the towns history revolves around the remains of Mary Magdalen. Her remains are contained in the church. The atraction of her remains to the faithfull proved lucrative for the abbey and for 3 centuries the abbey prospered. 

Les deux Ponts, the two  old bridges in Pierre-Perthuis

We visited an archeologique site at 2 km from St Père, The Salted Fountains a salt resource found by the people who inhabit the area before the romans came along, about 6,000 yeasrs ago. Salt was very rare in this region so it was also a precious resource. 

That was our next destination, St Père

We visited the wooden shoe factory "le sabotier" 

How to make a wooden shoe

Pretty flowers at the entrance of the Museum of Archeology. All the artifacts found in the Salted Fountains archeological site.

If you are a snail in Burgundy, you need to hide or you might end up in the menu. Hiding behind a leaf helps.

A small church in St Père styled as a cathedral.

This, now part of a farm, used to be the inside of a church.

The entrance of St Père.

The colours of the flora are amaizing.

The Cure river

Homes by the Cure

We found a walking path that connects Saint Père to Vézelay, another cool town.

Made it to Vézelay town just in time for mass, a very special mass.

The man on the floor is being ordained as a priest in the Catholic church at the same time as we were all working on getting popes John XXIII and John Paul II canonized as saints. In the end the bishop ordained the priest and the pope in rome canonized the new saints. All in all a successfull trip to the church. 

The façade of Vézelay Abbey

The othe tside of the Abbey

This is a hotel with 15 rooms, a restaurant and conference room. It's for sale, but we didn't buy it because there are allready too many hotels here.

The pretty flowers on this tree blosom right from the tree trunk.

We found the begining of yet another camino de santiago.

The day was a mixed bag of clouds and rain with rare sunny breaks. The intensity of the colors really changes with the light.

The town of St Père where we stayed.

Avallon April 25.

We went to Avallon because of a song by Nathalie Cole, Avalon. Turns out it's not the same place, we figured it out going over the lyrics to the song as we rode our bikes up the hills. There ain't no bay beside this Avallon. But it turned out to be a nice town in a beautiful part of France. We had some beauty days riding to Avallon and perhaps the ride was better than the destination. One of the best thing about france is the roads that are paved even though no one uses them for most of the year.

A tiny town on our way to Villeferry where we stayed, up on the hill.

The next day we visited Flavigny another tiny town well known by its famous anis candies.

 We tried several flavours and thet were all pretty good.

One of these houses in the corner was a set for the movie "Chocolate". 

A pretty and fragrant corner.

A house for sale had a wooden statue on one of the windows.

Features on a house.

A turtle face, perhaps

One of the streets in Flavigny

Explanation of how to make anis candy.

Today the Abbie is where the anis candy factory operates. 

Many little town are hidden in valleys.

Start of a long downhill run.

Bottom of the downhill run.

What was once a window is now a piece of art for the terrace, most of the visable features of the bed and breakfast were pieces salvaged from older buildings including churches and abbeys.

Our bed and breakfast good breakfast and awesome dinners.

On our way to Avallon. Yoly says: Thanks to antihistamines, I can enjoy the fragrance of canola. 

Faces on an ancient wall in Semur en Auxois

Semur en Auxois is a nice medieval town worth visitting.

One last look at Semur en Auxois.

We passed through another interesting town called Epoisses west of Semur. It has a big castle, an abbie and gorgeous gardens. This is a pigioner where homing pigions lived many centuries ago.

Outside the pigioner.

A restaurant in Avallon

A comunity anexed to Avallon

Avallon

Avallon. Don't show this picture to my mom.

At the bacground the clock tower.

I spy with my little eye: nine faces. Good luck!

Here is a hint. The walls are watching.

We walked along the walls of Avallon.