The Iversons' Franco-American Blog: Travels in France with Grandma and Grandpa

With August upon us now, we're happy with this blog post to look back now at the wonderful trip we launched the summer season with this June, when Grandma and Grandpa came to France for more than a week of vacation with us.

Together again in Paris, we helped Grandma and Grandpa get back into the swing of French life, with wine and cheese evenings...

Speaking French with grandpa...

Encore!

Walks around the neighborhood...

Including stops at the shoe shop next to daycare...

and a stop to visit with Sho Wen and his fish at the Thai restaurant...

We reminded them how to put lemon on their oysters...

And enjoyed catching up with Grandpa Jean-Guy / Papitou

As soon as Grandpa and Grandma's jet lag had worn off, we hopped on the train for a big trip to south-eastern France and the region of Beaujolais.

Lyon is a city with a ton of history (it made its fortune over 400 years from silk-weaving) half-way between sea and the mountains, and crossed by two rivers, the Saône and the Rhône.

We spent most of our day in Lyon walking the winding, hilly streets of the old city (and stopping for a few bites to eat and a nap!).

Pralines, or candy-coated almonds, are a Lyon specialty, and they've managed to derive a number of desserts from them...

We walked into buildings dating back to the 15th century, like this one where the first printing press in France was set up.

We walked through a couple of the numerous Traboules in Lyon, these long corridors spanning several buildings which connect different streets, and which made for a constant headache for Germans trying to squash the resistance in the city during WWII.

It's a hilly city, and it seemed the higher we got, the older things got.

We saw vestiges of the oldest buildings in Lyon, with actual medieval timbered galleries.

And finally, we found ourselves walking down an old Roman road into the heart of Lugdunum, as Lyon was called in the Roman times, founded in 43 BC and the greatest city of Roman-Gaul.

We visited the old bath houses and theaters (where they continue to have concerts and plays today), and enjoyed the view over the city and of the Alps in the distance.

In the evening we had a hearty Lyon meal at a modern version of the 'bouchon', a traditional workers' eatery.

cabbage and smoked herring salad

lentils

quenelle de brochet - pike dumplings in crawfish/shrimp cream sauce

Milo thought the chocolate fondant cake was out of this world, and insisted on everyone trying a bite...

After a quick breakfast the next morning, we picked up our rental car and were off to discover Southern Beaujoalis region, the Pays des Pierres dorées, or the Golden Stone Country, an area sometimes called France's little Tuscany, for its rolling hills and medieval villages.

Our first stop was to visit the great Beaujolais wine maker Jean-Paul Brun, the man who has probably done the most to change the image of southern Beaujolais region, which is often viewed as a lower quality region best for bulk wines and Beaujolais Nouveau, while the Northern Beaujolais has 'cru' wines considered to be of higher quality.

Brun started out as a winemaker with his father's four little hectares of vines, located here in the southern Beaujolais region. Brun believed that the region actually had potential to make great Chardonnay, given the limestone soils there that are similar to Burgundy. Today he makes a whole panoply of wines from plots located around the entire Beaujolais region, including Beaujolais cru wines like Moulin à Vent and Fleurie, but what we really loved were his amazing Chardonnays made in the southern Beaujolais.

Because he makes so many different wines, our tasting was like a tour of the entire region, and gave us real vision of the wide variety of styles possible in Beaujolais.

Afterwards we had dinner and stayed over night at a nearby organic farm and B&B, www.lafermeduchapi.com, which had lovely views and lots of animals to see and play with.

Always happy to take advantage of my press credentials to get a peek inside interesting places, the next morning we went for a little tour of the nearby Château de Bagnols, a 13th century castle which was entirely restored in recent years and transformed into a luxurious hotel.

Nice bathtub! And check out the throne!

We moved on to the village of Oingt, which is ranked among the most beautiful villages in France, and whose walls are almost exclusively built with the lovely golden stones for which the area is famous.

Then we got back on the road to head to the village where we spent our second night—Vauxrenard, far up in northern Beaujolais, near the villages of crus wines like Chiroubles, Fleurie and Juleanas.

No more golden stones here, but this was an even hillier area, and a bit wilder too.

The village of Vauxrenard

We stayed at a little out-of-the-way vineyard with a B&B www.domaine-de-foretal.com owned by the Perraud family, just outside Vauxrenard. People around there seem to still have never heard of ecology or organic agriculture, and the men were hard at work spraying weed killer in the rows when we pulled in in the early evening.

One of the Perraud sons gave us a pleasant tasting of their fresh and fruity wines, and told us about their moment in the sun a few years ago when a LA Times reporter came through the region and took a walking tour with their father Jacques, and put his picture in the magazine calling him the Cary Grant of Beaujolais or something. They were nice folks, and their region was even nicer!

We visited Vauxrenard, with its chapel where religion has clearly been focused on the lives of winegrowers for centuries, and took a beautiful walk through the countryside.

The altar, made from an old wine press.

Some of the many wine-themed stained glass windows.

Even with Spring behind us, there were still plenty of flowers around to enjoy...

It was a wonderful trip, and we left feeling that we'd had a privileged peek inside one of the most beautiful—and under-appreciated—wine regions in France.

Back in Paris, we took care of some final important business, like getting in a meal of the best mussels and fries in Paris ( according to a VERY important food writer www.francetoday.com/articles/2013/04/19/two_for_brew.html ) at the Academie de la Biere...