Wined, dined and rested.

Heading north through France we stayed the night in a little town in southern Burgundy called Tramayes. It had been chosen because of the hotel Le Maronnier where the price was reasonable – quite honestly, that was why we were there.  The hotel was great – small, independent, spanking clean newly refurbished rooms……

…. and a restaurant with a limited menu that Monsieur could manage to produce fresh pretty much by himself, with help from Madame who runs ‘front of house’ admirably.

We sat in their tiny but charming garden restaurant and had really good simple food – hot goat’s cheese salad, chicken in mustard sauce and a delicious home-made fruit tart.

 

I had to answer what is becoming the standard inquisition throughout our travels “So, what’s all this about Brexit?” from the people sitting next to us, but I don’t think they were expecting me to answer in fluent French.  “Your French is amazing,” exclaimed one of them, and for once I didn’t look down modestly and say “Well, I’m a French teacher actually”, because that tends to produce the slightly irritating response, pronounced as a great revelation “oh I see” as if instantly the ability to have learned French to any degree of fluency suddenly doesn’t really count!  Instead, fortified by a lovely pichet of Macon blanc I decided to take issue with a phrase they had used about “as a basic English person, what is your opinion…..” and – fortunately they took it as the joke it was meant to be – replied ”Well, I don’t consider myself to be basic…” and luckily I didn’t have to find a clever way to finish it because they all roared with laughter, probably also fortified by the Macon blanc and we had a lovely jolly conversation after that.

 

As for the chateau, it dominates this little town, standing prettily behind a high wall nearly opposite the hotel, just showing enough of its square towers, round pigeonnier and Burgundian flat walls to be tantalising.

There is an information plaque stating that the 19^th century poet Alphonse de Lamartine used to stay here (it belonged to one of his friends) and write in one of the towers because it had a lovely view down the valley of his own castle at Saint Point.  I couldn’t find any reference to whether he also used to sit in one of the towers of his own chateau and look up at the chateau of Tramayes, but since he didn’t own it I am assuming it was only his second favourite.

 

There was one other thing that impressed us at Tramayes; we arrived on a Saturday afternoon in August after some hideous driving on an autoroute, followed by some much more pleasant driving through the pretty and very affluent Macon countryside with lots of beautifully and expensively restored huge farmhouses. You’d think there would be people around. No. It was the standard, deserted small French town (apologies to my French readers, but this does always seem to be the case in small French towns, all English people wonder if the inhabitants have a scout just before town and at a word from her or him everyone closes all the shutters and rushes down to the cellar until the English car has passed) – a few shops, all closed or closing, a second hotel that was closed and a little bar with a couple of people sitting quietly outside.

We joked cheerily to each other about the vast number of (empty) parking spaces – the chateau was locked behind its walls, not open to visits, retail therapy was clearly not a pastime here and our little hotel was very nice but tiny.

 

Well, Sunday morning was a revelation – yes, SUNDAY, of all days!  French supermarkets seem only just beginning to try and open on Sunday mornings, but in Tramayes Sunday morning is clearly the time to be seen out and about. The town was buzzing, all the shops were open and had queues of people practically fighting each other to get in, even the chi-chi gift shop. The greengrocer – of all shops – had a queue, and it was hard to find somewhere to sit at the little bar. And yes, pretty much every parking space was full.

 

Just when you think you’ve understood the rhythm of French life, it all turns upside down again.

 

We shook our heads and left buzzy, heaving, crowded little Tramayes on Sunday morning telling ourselves that we would never be judgmental again……