A Slow Road Trip Through Burgundy Without the Rush

The first time I drove through Burgundy I did it in a day and a half. Dijon, the wine road, Beaune, a tasting, a hurried dinner, then south to Mâcon. I came home with a box of bottles and almost no memory of the place. My notebook from that trip has four lines in it.

Since then I have gone back every season, and I have learned to do it slowly. This is the route I now give friends: about 350 kilometres over six days, five nights, with never more than two hours of driving between beds. It is not the fastest way to see Burgundy. It is the way that lets you actually taste it.

Why slow works better here

Burgundy rewards small distances. The famous Côte d'Or wine villages sit a few kilometres apart along one road, and the hill towns to the west are scattered through farmland where the best things, a cheese dairy, a market, a church at the top of a hill, are easy to miss at speed. Drive fast and it all blurs into vineyards and roundabouts.

Lunch is also serious here. Many village restaurants serve from noon until about half past one and then close. If you are on the road at noon, you will eat a sandwich in a service station. Plan the driving around meals, not the other way round.

The route, day by day

Days one and two: the wine road

Leave Dijon late morning and follow the D974 south. Stop in Gevrey-Chambertin, then walk around the walls of the Clos de Vougeot, the great Cistercian wine estate that still dominates the slope. Sleep in a small village rather than a town. The next morning, drive the short stretch to Beaune and give it a full day: the coloured tile roof of the Hospices, the Saturday market, an afternoon walking among the vines of Pommard and Volnay.

Eat jambon persillé at lunch, a terrine of ham set in parsley jelly, and oeufs en meurette in the evening, eggs poached in red wine sauce. Both are better in a village bistro than anywhere fancy.

Day three: into the Auxois

Turn west and the vines give way to pasture and white Charolais cattle. Stop at Châteauneuf, a fortified village on a ridge above the canal, for a coffee and the view. Then on to Semur-en-Auxois, a pink granite town on a bend of the river Armançon. Arrive before dusk, when the light catches the towers.

Day four: cheese, aniseed and a hill

This is the day for small detours. Époisses, the village that gives its name to the soft, washed rind cheese, is a short drive from Semur. Then Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, a hilltop village where little aniseed sweets have been made in the old abbey for centuries. Lunch in Avallon, then climb up to Vézelay. Walk to the basilica at the top in the late afternoon and stay for the sunset over the Morvan.

Days five and six: the quiet north

Noyers-sur-Serein is one of the most beautiful villages in Burgundy and one of the least hurried, with half timbered houses wrapped inside a loop of the river. Spend the afternoon doing almost nothing. On the last morning, drive the short way to Chablis for a glass of crisp white and some gougères, the cheese puffs served with aperitifs across the region, before heading home.

The advice I stopped following: base yourself in Beaune

Most guides tell you to book one hotel in Beaune and do day trips. It sounds efficient. You unpack once, you know the town, you avoid the bother of moving.

I disagree, at least for a trip like this. Basing yourself in Beaune means driving back to the same place every evening, often on the same road, often after a glass of wine, and missing the evenings in the villages, which are the best part. Vézelay at sunset after the day visitors have gone is a different place from Vézelay at noon. So is Noyers. You only see that by sleeping there.

The village you sleep in is the village you actually get to know.

Moving every night or two costs a little time packing. In exchange you get five different dinners, five different mornings, and almost no evening driving.

Where to sleep

I will not name specific places, because owners change, menus change and what suits me may not suit you. I look for small family run inns with a restaurant, ideally with half board, and I book by the dinner first. Léonie wrote the guide I wish I had read before my first trip: how to choose a family run inn in rural France.

Booking ahead matters in late September and October, during the harvest, and in summer around Beaune. In spring and late autumn you can often find a room the same week, but check closing days, since many village restaurants close on Sunday evenings and Mondays.

Packing for a slow drive

• A cool bag for cheese. You will buy some.
• Comfortable shoes for steep village streets. Vézelay and Flavigny are both on hills.
• A paper map of the region. Phone signal drops in the valleys of the Morvan.
• A notebook. You will want to remember what you ate.

If you enjoy planning journeys like this, Mathis has an interesting piece on how online game players plan trips across virtual countryside, and the parallels with a good real itinerary are closer than you might think. More routes are collected under road trips.

Before your next trip, take any route you have planned and remove one stop. Spend the extra night in the village you liked most. That one change is most of what slow travel means.