BURGUNDY

Dijon, CAPITAL OF BURGUNDY
The ancient palace of dukes and States of Burgundy is really the murderer of the capital of duke which became that of a contemporary region. . II shelters, with the City hall, the Museum of Fine art, one of the great museums of Europe. Its fame is not based only on the uncontested wealth of its collections, but especially on the ownership of chefs-d'œuvre of the painting and of the sculpture of the Middle Age, notably the graves of dukes of Burgundy. Around the palace spreads out the completely protected historic town centre as a safeguarded sector. It offers to the guest the charm of its places and its alleys for a stroll between houses with half-timbering and particular hotels, in the shade of the arrows of its churches: Notre-Dame, real stony watermark, with the unique facade where alternate, by rows, waste-gas mains of slim columns, surmounted of the clock Jacquemart; Saint - Bénigne, the cathedral, with the solemnity based on its ancient dignity of abbey church, with its crypt and its church organs; Saint-Jean which became a theatre; Saint Michel, where is read all the evolution of the Renaissance style in whiteness of the Burgundian stone. In the serenity of these buildings spreads the abundant life of the market which takes place three times a week around the halls of XIX-th century. But Dijon is also a green city, with the courses of its particular hotels, with its numerous parks and gardens through which we can access the country by ride boat.

BEAUNE, BLAZING OF GOLD AND OF RUBY
If there is a city, in Burgundy, charm of which can express itself in the harmony of two colours, it is Beaune. Gold and the ruby are the brilliant tints of the vintage wines of Burgundy, of which it is the uncontested capital. These same tints meet in the roofs of the Hotel-Dieu, real palace of the poor men, the most eloquent example of this Flemish and blazing art which became Burgundian in full agonies of the war of Hundred a years. Gold and the ruby dominate as well with their brightness the altarpiece of Last Judgment, of Rogier Van der Weyden, the grandest of the uncountable treasures that this charitable institute contains. They glisten throughout the series of tapestries telling the life of the Virgo, in the Notre-Dame church, weaved in Tournail in about 1500.
The pondering of monuments and of works is coupled, for the amateur of wine, the discovery of uncountable pleasures of the palace, in the course of the vaults which stretch under the embedded city , such a jewel, in the ring of its medieval bulwarks.

THE SMALL MEDIEVAL CITIES
Among the uncountable small villages loaded with history, in Burgundy, six old cities reserve for the walker the charm of their authentically medieval decoration and their alleys with the quiet villager.
NOYERS-SUR-SEREIN
First of all it is the small town of Noyers, placed in a buckle of the Serene river. With its paved alleys, lined of, houses with half-timbering on arches, it is the image of the trading town of the Middle Age. Particular hotels of the Renaissance or classical style add a distinguished note to the charm of the place. The church, which marks the passage from the Gothic art to that of the Renaissance, and the museum, dedicated to the artless art, will be the strong points of a stroll which will connect the Painted door, in the South, to the door Verrotte, in the North, decorator with a Virgo with the Child traditional defender of the wine growers. Ramparts will accompany with their tall figure the return, rural, along the Serene.
MONTREAL
In about twenty kilometres upstream, here is the hill of Montreal. The name of the village - mons regalis, the royal mountain would result from its role as place of residence of the Merovingian queen Brunehaut, at about the year 600. Of the feudal fortress, remain impressive rests. Having crossed the door of En-bas, XIII-th century, the guest climbs an alley lined with medieval houses, until that of En-bas, more ancient, that opens on a vast terrace. From here, opens a panorama which counts among the most beautiful of North Burgundy and spreads out until Morvan. Over this terrace the church was built, surrounded with its old cemetery. This ancient Romanic collegiate church is famous for its stalls, sculptured in the oak in 1526, representing scenes inspired of the peasant life as well as of the Bible.
SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS
The peace of mind of Montreal contrasts with the buzzing life which reigns in Semur-en-Auxois. The capital of Auxois nevertheless knew how to preserve its medieval centre, perched on a cliff of granite squeezed in a buckle of the Armançon, one of the most picturesque sites of Burgundy. Four immense stony towers seem to prop up the labyrinth of houses and alleys, connected with the outside world by two stony bridges outside age, which step over the river on both sides of the rocky hook. In the heart of the town thrones the collegiate Notre-Dame, with the narrow hall which seems to fuse towards the sky, whereas numerous objects of art - sculptures, paintings and stained glasses - hold attention of the guest.
FLAVIGNY- SUR-OZERAIN
Flavigny-sur-Ozerain looks like The Sleeping Beauty among the small medieval cities of Burgundy.

ON BOTH SIDES FROM OF THE SAÔNE
The Saône is a peaceful river. Such a wide silvery ribbon, it winds through the vast plain which connects, as it separates them, the Burgundian coast and the foothills of Jura. During centuries, it acted as border between the realm of France and the Germanic Saint - Empire - the skippers do not they speak always of " bank of Empi " and " bank of Riaume " - connecting among them "countries" placed on both sides of its course, marked out of small and big cities.
Auxonne, fortified Burgundian town on the comtoise bank of the Saône, preserved of its long past of citborder two strengthened doors, an arsenal built by Vauban and, especially, the castle built under Louis XI reign, sheltering a museum dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte who was younger in Auxonne. The church Notre-Dame is a beautiful example of the Burgundian Gothic style.
Saint-jean-de-Losne, quiet town placed in about twenty kilometres downstream Auxonne, is an important centre of river tourism nowadays having been, since the XIX-th century, the regional capital of the canal transport. This last tradition is always illustrated by a great annual holiday in mid-June, including a blessing of boats
Seurre, the following stage, possesses an ancient beautiful centre with houses in red bricks, of which the house Bossuet which shelters the museum of man and the environment of the Saône. Seurre'sHôtel-Dieu, built since 1688, is one of the most beautiful of Burgundy.
It is in Verdun-sur-le-Doubs that the Saône widens appreciably, by the contribution of waters, more tempestuous, from the Doubs which can not deny its previous mountain dwellers origins. The privileged site of the town, in an island protected by waters while being on roads of great business, conferred its prosperity, but also its historic role as city border since the treaty of Verdun, which shared the Carolingian Empire in 843. If the sailors set, here, the succession of the skippers, the old town kept all its authenticity and, in the former city hall, the House of the Wheat and Bread, the antenna of the museum of man and the environment of Burgundian Bresse, gives evidence of rural traditions of that part of the country.
Chalon-sur-Saône is the second city of Burgundy. Arisen from the Saône, as port of Eduens, at the time bawdy, it knew the hours of glory at about the beginning and the end of the Middle Age, as capital of the Merovingian realm of Burgundy, then as place of great international fairs. The Saint Vincent district, around the cathedral, is its historic heart. The street and the place Saint Vincent widely preserved a medieval aspect, with their houses with half-timbering. The cathedral associates all the variants of Romanic and Gothic styles, from XI-th to XV-th centuries. The small convent of the finishing Middle Age is a haven of peace in full city, whereas the high neogothic towers of the building dominate the weekly markets and serve of picturesque wings, every third July weekend, for some troop of drummers, during the festival " Chaton dans la Rue».
Rich in its museums - the museum Denon dedicated to Fine art and to the archaeology and the museum Niepce, dedicated to the inventor of the photography - enchantress by these green spaces as the immense rose garden and by its perspectives sometimes intimate sometimes grand, Chaton-sur-Saône is more than a walk.

Tournus, only about twenty kilometres to the South of Kitten, welcomes its guests in a very different atmosphere, already sharply Southern. The houses of the little town, covered with curved tiles in the uncountable nuances of pink, squeeze up one another, in rows slightly curved, Of the mosaic of roofs, clans a perfect harmony, appear the bell towers of churches, Saint - Philibert in the North and Saint - Madeleine in the South. In the shade of the first, the Burgundian museum Perrin-de-Puycousin, with its collections of traditional suits and furniture from Bress, calls back the rural life of formerly with a striking realism. The collections of art and those of local archaeology belonging to the city, collected in a museum dedicated to the painter Greuze, native of Tournus, were reorganized in the former Hotel-Dieu, which also contains a hospitable museum.

In the South of Tournus, Mâcon shows with a profusion of flowers its smiling character of the most Southern city of Burgundy. It turns, towards the rising sun, a beautiful and wide river facade punctuated with some bell towers, towards which leads, since Bresse, the respectable Saint Laurent Bridge. The municipal museum in the former convent of Ursulines as well as the Romanic rests of the ancient Saint Vincent cathedral count among the hidden treasures of the Mâcon's historic centre. But it is especially the charm of its places and its alleys, quite particularly the place of herbs, animated in summer by a daily vegetables and flowers market that holds under the windows of the wooden house and the exuberant sculptures, which gives to the walk in city a foretaste as that in the surrounding vineyard