So, on to our last week in France. A leisurely drive of about four hours on secondary roads took us north and slightly east from our apartment in the Auvergne to Noyers, a small village in Yonne, a department in the southern part of the Bourgogne. The place we'd selected for this final week before heading home is one of the "les plus beaux villages de France".
Why Noyers?
Noyers, with a population of about 600 souls, nestles in a meander of the Serein River
An overview of France showing the location of Noyers
You've probably never heard of Noyers or, to reference its full name, Noyers-Sur-Serein. We hadn't either until we started researching places to visit after our Lionheart tour finished. One criterion was to spend time in the middle of a French village, where we'd be able to buy fresh bread from a local boulangerie, smallgoods from the local boucherie and enjoy a coffee or a beer at a cafe-bar just around the corner from where we were staying. A good network of minor roads was also an essential factor because we wanted to explore the local area by bike. The fact that Noyers is a medieval village with such a rich history and retains many of its ancient buildings proved to be a great bonus.
Noyers streetscape
Examples of Noyer's medieval architecture
There are a number of side streets with buildings that connect overhead
Several buildings have small carved figures as part of their detailing
Had we seen this 360 degree view of the central part of the town before booking our accommodation we would have been even more keen to stay there. As it turned out the place fitted our requirements perfectly. Even our apartment - which we thought would be okay - proved in fact to be excellent.
The Riding
Approaching Chablis, with vineyards in the background
Of course the main reason for continuing our holiday was to get some familiarity with another area of France by exploring from the saddles of our bicycles. We were a bit surprised and nonplussed to be passing through large grain and hay fields as we neared our destination and wondered if maybe the riding wouldn't be quite so attractive as we'd hoped. We thought that there would be lots of grapevines and perhaps more general cropping. As it turned out there was quite a lot of variety, with more grapes to the north and forest to the east and west of Noyers.
Our first ride was a great outing, traversing 150 kilometres south, west and north of Noyers and visiting the historic towns of Avallon, Auxerre and Chablis - home to the wine of the same name made from Chardonnay grapes. Here's a photo taken in the old part of Avallon ...
In Avallon
... and one just as we're entering Chablis from the north ...
... passes quite nearby Noyers and Di was keen to visit it on our bikes so I designed a ride that took us across to it and along its banks for a little over 20 kilometres. By this time the weather was heating up again and we decided it would be best to set off fairly early in the morning. I thought it could be a fun outing so I took my action camera and did a bit of filming during the journey, resulting in this video ...
Of course there are a number of locks along the canal and riding over them gave a different perspective on the landscape ...
A lock on the Canal de Bourgogne
With our trip winding down we weren't driven to ride every day, but I managed to get in four days on the bike, with Di opting out of the last ride. I would have been keen to do at least one more ride and to have gone further on some of the rides we did do, but the heat wave we experienced curtailed those ambitions.
Here are a few snapshots from the two-wheeled explorations we did undertake ...
G'day donkey
If only we had bridges covered in flowers here in Tasmania!
A partially harvested wheat crop
Wheat close up
Sunflowers start to lift their heads towards the morning sun
Sunflowers with a farm in the background
Small roads traverse hay fields on higher ground
For what turned out to be my last ride of the trip I went north to Chablis for an early breakfast to beat the heat. I had le petit déjeuner complete ...
Le Petit Déjeuner (complet!)
... and then rode just north of the town to get a last photo of some grape vines ...
These Chardonnay grapes will be made into the famous Chablis wine
... before riding back to Noyers to hide from the heat and watch yet another engrossing stage of the most interesting Tour de France for years.
An Historical Side Trip with a Hiccup on the Way Back
One attraction of spending some time in this area was to soak up a bit of history. In 2016 when we rode from London to Rome with Ride and Seek we passed through the area and stopped briefly in Alesia to visit the Museoparc Alésia, which remembers the famous battle between the Gaulish armies of Vércingetorix and those of Caesar in 52 BC. On that occasion our time was extremely limited and we thought it would be great to have a longer look at the museum and the archeological digs nearby.
Today Vercingétorix is seen as the original French resistance fighter, although there is a strong school of thought that says he really only represented the interests of the rich French lords and masters, and that the common folk were quite happy with the changes the Roman Empire brought with them.
It was a very interesting day out, made a little more interesting and more than a little marred when our GPS guided us along a gravel road through grain fields. Unfortunately the surface was not quite like any of the other dirt roads we'd encountered over the previous two and a half weeks. It consisted of increasing large, sharp stones and made me feel a bit like Macbeth as it got to the point that "should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er". It became increasingly obvious that the road must have only been used by large farm vehicles and our GPS had led us astray.
Before long the upshot was a wrecked tyre. I managed to change it, but obviously we needed a replacement. Luckily, the next reasonable sized town we went through had a tyre repair shop that dealt in Continental tyres, just the brand we needed. Unfortunately they were closed when we arrived. Fortunately, there was a great restaurant nearby and we were overdue for lunch, so that filled the time up nicely until the tyre place re-opened. Unfortunately, the tyre place didn't have the right tyre in stock when we got back there. Fortunately they could have a replacement on site late the next morning. When we arrived back just after 11 a.m. they had the tyre installed on the wheel we'd left with them and it was a five minute job to take off the silly little spare that came with the vehicle and put the new, correct tyre back on the car. Just another little adventure and a slightly expensive lesson about some of the gravel roads in the Bourgogne!
A Final Note on Noyers
We were a bit unlucky with the excessive heat we experienced in Noyers this year. However, the town is a great place to hang out. There are quite a few apartments available to rent (we would highly recommend the one we had) and a number of restaurants. There is also a music festival happening there every July with numerous evening performances in the church. It's not far to drive to some other interesting and very charming villages. As you can see from the overview photo right near the start of the post, Noyers is right in the heart of France and I would have to say that it seemed quintessentially French to me. With the boulangerie, boucherie, café-bar, a few restaurants, a pharmacie, a couple of épiceries and an automatic teller it has everything you need for a relaxing week's getaway. Highly recommended!
