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.

This morning, we joined the ship’s “Silk Weavers’ Walk” to see a bit more of Vieux Lyon and learn a bit more about the silk industry here…and to walk off some of the food we’ve been enjoying.

We walked over to Place Bellecour where our guide explained its history – it had been the Archbishop of Lyon’s garden, but was abandoned for many years; eventually, Louis XIV turned it into a public square, complete with a bronze statue of the king, which, of course, was destroyed during the French Revolution. It remained a public square and eventually got a new statue of Louis XIV, which remains there to this day.

We walked the few blocks from Place Bellecour to Vieux Lyon; our guide explained that traboules were built as enclosed streets connecting densely-packed houses; there are a few open to the public, and we traversed one, the “Long Traboule”, which connects four houses.

We then stopped outside a branch of Brochier Soieries to learn about the lifecycle of the silkworm and its relationship to the mulberry bush.

We continued onward to one of the historic silk weavers in Vieux Lyon, Soierie Saint-Georges, where Virgil, one of the owners, gave us a quick tour and wove a few millimeters of brocade silk on his 200-year-old loom. It’s a family business; his father has been a weaver for 45 years, and has spent much of the time creating upholstery for places like Versailles. They also have a more contemporary side, with scarves and ties available at reasonable prices.

Brochier Soieries came onboard this afternoon to explain silk-screening and digital silk-printing…and just in case anyone was interested, they’d brought scarves for purchase. Diane was interested.

We’ll be leaving Lyon in a few minutes, en route to our first port of call, Macon.