Day 16 - Beaune

Day 16—Monday, May 25, 1992

We began our day at 8:30 a.m. and enjoyed a powerful shower, followed by breakfast in the hotel’s sunny and elegant dining room. The breakfast included three kinds of bread, two cheeses, and assorted jams—all very good. Our room was so nice, we were reluctant to leave right away, and so we sat out on the balcony for a spell. Then we drove back into Montreux.

We drove around town looking for a place to park, thoroughly confused by the city’s color-coded parking system. Finally, we just pulled into a space and parked. We looked around and didn’t see any meters, so we figured it was cool to park there. Then we walked and walked up and down the streets of this charming and easily navigable town. We stopped at a bank to convert some money into Swiss francs and then shopped and actually did some buying in the process. Sharon bought a Swiss Army knife for me and a pewter cat figurine for herself. We also picked up three shot glasses, a Montreux sticker, a picture of a cat and mouse, a map of town, numerous postcards, and one bottle of Pecheresse beer. While the stores closed for the obligatory two-hour lunch break, we sat on a small shaded pier on Lac Leman and wrote postcards. Aside from the two written in Paris—sent to my grandma and the cats at home—these were the first postcards I’d written on the trip, and fortunately, I was on a roll. I zipped out cards to my parents, Gwen & Sean, and Curt & Cyndi. Meanwhile, Sharon wrote to her parents, Brian & Kam, and Kevin & Rose. (She had previously written a few cards, including one to Paul & Dottie, while in Paris). Then we headed back into town for lunch, choosing a place that billed itself as a real English pub. There we ate cheeseburgers and drank beer. I also dashed off a couple more postcard, one to Van Jones and one to Jeff Logan.

After lunch we bought some stamps and did a little more shopping, picking up a blouse for Sandy Hand and ordering a flower-embroidered shirt for Sharon that the store didn’t have in stock. The deal on Sharon’s shirt was that the saleslady would mail it to her if it came in, and Sharon could then send a check. Nice to see that someone trusted people so. It was nearing 4:00 p.m. by now, and we wanted to get on the road, so we headed back to the car. The car of course had a parking ticket on the windshield. What a nice little souvenir it made.

We left Montreux and headed toward Lausanne by way of a very crowded road, which ran alongside the lake. The Swiss autoroute would have been much faster, but we were out of Swiss francs to pay for the tolls we expected to be charged. Navigating through the city of Lausanne was a bit hectic but was accomplished without too much ado. Then we exited the city and found ourselves on an autoroute, which sped us on our way, but not until we crossed into France did we fully realize that this autoroute, if not all those in Switzerland, was not a toll road. Soon after re-entering France, we stopped in a border town and briefly browsed around, but soon left when we discovered that they didn’t even have beer in the place. Our next stop was at a supermarket, which did have beer, as well as other supplies we needed.

We were now in the Burgundy region of France and back on track with the Rick Steves’ book, which recommended staying in the town of Beaune. So we drove toward Beaune. And a very lovely drive it was, first winding gently down the foothills of the Alps and then as straight as an arrow across the flat Burgundian countryside. As we neared Beaune, the sun wandered in and out behind drifting clouds, and on several occasions sunrays streamed through gaps in the clouds—a phenomena that I always find to be both awe-inspiring yet overwhelmingly pacifying.

We reached the ring road that encircles Beaune a little before 8:30 p.m. and without difficulty found Le Home, a charming hotel highly recommended by Rick Steves. We checked into our carriage-styled room, number 19, and then went out to have dinner. The first restaurant we tried, called Au Bon Accueil and recommended by Rick Steves, took quite some doing to find, necessitating one or two extra trips around the ring road before we located the right exit. But our efforts were all for naught because the restaurant was full owing to the busload of tourists there. Our departure from the restaurant, which was nestled in the woodlands overlooking Beaune, proved to be a challenge—there must have been about five dirt roads leading from it, and the first two we tried ended up becoming dirt paths. Things didn’t get a whole lot better with the next restaurant we checked out. It was pretty far out of town and like the last one was frustrating to find, which was all the more so when we found out that dinner was no longer being served. We drove back to Beaune, circled the ring road a couple times looking for an open restaurant, and finally parked the car to check out the scene on foot.

In the middle of town, at long last, we found a restaurant open for business. It wasn’t much of a place—little more than Denny’s type joint—but for two starved and thoroughly frustrated would-be diners it would do. It would have done a whole lot better, however, had it not taken forever to have served our food. We ended up eating, I believe, a rather disagreeable sausage dish and a palatable spaghetti dish. By this point I had a heck of a headache from a lack of coffee, which was only partially relieved by the coffee I had after dinner. We finished eating, waited an exceptionally long time for our check, and then retreated to our hotel room, where we crawled into bed and crashed.

HIGHLIGHTS: Getting those postcards written and mailed—a load off the mind. For Sharon it was walking around Montreux, especially by the lake.

LOWLIGHTS: Hunting for that dinner—really wearing on the psyche.

NOTES: Swiss banks lived up to their reputation of being reliable institutions that don’t play games with money. Exchange rates were the same everywhere, and the margin between buying and selling currency was very narrow.

REFLECTIONS FROM 2020:

For any rock & roll baby boomer, the Swiss town of Montreux will forever recall the 1972 Deep Purple song “Smoke on the Water” and its indelible guitar riff. The lyrics go like this:

We all came out to Montreux, On the Lake Geneva shoreline

To make records with a mobile, We didn't have much time

Frank Zappa and the Mothers, Were at the best place around

But some stupid with a flare gun, Burned the place to the ground

Coincidentally, the first bit-time concert I ever attended was to see Deep Purple at the Spectrum in Philly in 1974, but that’s a different trip.

I don’t recall our walk around Montreux, but I remember that we immensely liked the place. I’d love to get back there.