Introduction

So many good things grow in Burgundy! Our garden overlooking the river Yonne overflows with berries, salad greens, beans, fresh herbs and all the members of the onion family including garlic. The local market stalls offer farm-raised poultry and the best selection of cheeses I’ve seen outside a major city. Burgundian beef from the famous Charollais cattle is renowned far outside France and as for the Lyonnais hams and sausages, I could survive on them alone without a moment’s regret.

For the traveller, Burgundy is best known as the road south from Paris which was made agreeable, until the era of autoroutes, by some of the finest inns in Europe. Burgundy and the neighbouring Lyonnais offer much much more however, from the foothills of the Alps in the south east, home of the chickens of Bresse, to the cattle country of Nièvre at the western extremity. In the centre rise the mountains of the Morvan national park, while Dijon, Lyon, and the wine towns of the Cote d’Or – the slope of gold – exhude an air of confidence. Wealth gleams everywhere – the wealth of vineyards and of some of the finest agricultural land in France – and goes back so many centuries that the province is littered with splendid abbeys and chateaux.