Two years ago, we docked in Tournon on a beautiful, sunny, warm day and took a short walk to a wine tasting. This year, we docked across the Rhône in Tain-l’Hermitage – the day was wet and cold, and our wine tasting was at the end of a four-kilometer hike.

We began by crossing the Marc Seguin bridge to Tournon; it was the first suspension bridge to use wire rope, and bears a strong resemblance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

We walked through Tournon for a few blocks and started our climb up the path to the terraces where they grow the grapes that become delicious wine. We could see the Tower of the Virgin above us, one of the two remaining towers of the twelve which once guarded the city’s ramparts.

If it hadn’t been raining and slippery, it would have been a very pleasant walk; as it was, our guide took us up slowly and everyone survived the trip.

Perhaps the inflatable gargoyle watching over the road at the end of the trail helped keep us safe.

The strenuous part of the hike was over, but we still had a couple of kilometers to go to get to the wine tasting. Our route took us past the Tournon War memorial, over the Marc Seguin bridge, and past a few vineyards before we arrived at the Cave de Tain tasting room.

The tasting was anticlimactic – there was a lot of explication and we only tasted two wines (one white, one red), though the cheese and chocolate which accompanied the wines were very good.

After the tasting, we had a chance to stop at the Valhrona Chocolate tasting room and shop, but we chose to go back to the ship and get out of our wet clothes and shoes…and eat lunch. The pastry chef had prepared a cake showing our route; it took liberties with geography and chronology, but it was delicious.

We sailed away from Tain l’Hermitage during lunch.

We’ll be sailing the rest of the day, arriving in Viviers around 9pm; I doubt we’ll get off the ship until the morning.

We sailed overnight to Macon, but we didn’t get to see it – instead, we boarded buses to drive up the A6 for our “Burgundy Landscapes, Beaune and Hospices” tour, enjoying the landscape along the way (rapeseed is one of the major crops in the area).

They took us to an area of vineyards in Puligny-Montrachet, where we got to see Grand Cru Chardonnay at a very early stage in its growing season.

We thought about waiting for the grapes to be ready to be made into wine, but we just didn’t have enough time in our schedule.

We boarded the buses again for the short trip to Beaune, the wine capital of Burgundy.

We weren’t really there for wine, though; we were there to see the Hôtel-Dieu, which was the original site of the Hospices of Beaune, which was founded in 1443 as a charitable hospital and continued operating at the same site until the 1980’s. We had a few minutes before our tour to walk around the town and enjoy a quick lunch (yes, there was wine).

The Hôtel-Dieu itself is quite impressive; the founders, Nicolas Rolin, the Duke’s of Normandy’s Chancellor, and his wife Guigone de Salins built it as a charitable act (our guide said it was for a cause even more important than a tax deduction – it was to ensure they went to Heaven!), and they spared no expense. The artwork and architecture were there to help the patients (who were unlikely to recover) decide that they wanted to repent before they died so they could go to Heaven, too.

The hospital also had kitchens and a pharmacy, of course.

We had a few minutes to walk around Beaume after our visit, and then it was back on the bus to return to Macon, board the ship, and start sailing south.