Pierre has been yearning to do Sunday excursions with me, the way he used to do them with his own children. His idea is to pack a picnic lunch and venture off in the car for a day of discovery. He prescribes getting lost. This way, he says, you will never be disappointed in what you find. Besides, in “deep” Burgundy you’re bound to stumble across something that will “blow your socks off”. You might call me easy to please, but I can tell you, last Sunday’s modest little venture did just that.
First of all, let me introduce Pierre. Besides being a retired accountant and mineralogist, he is a self-made master of paleography (science of deciphering ancient documents) who volunteers his time at the Departmental Archives in Dijon. The first time we met, he was holding the original 14th century marriage contract between Philip the Bold (1st Duke of Burgundy) and Marguerite of Flandres. It was carefully written on a crinkled browned roll of parchment with impressive wax seals dangling at the bottom. The writing was beautiful, gothic, calligraphic, but I couldn’t decipher a single word. Pierre of course could read the entire contract without a vocal glitch. After listening to his reading, I signed up for his paleography class.
 Sunday (March 9th): I admit to having set up a rendezvous with the mayor of St. Thibault, a village of 142 inhabitants in the Auxois in the northwestern part of the Côte d’Or (one of the four departments of the region of Burugndy). St Thibault is an oddity I had always wanted to discover. This unassuming village, typical of the very rural Auxois area, guards the remains of an impressive 13th century cathedral-like parish church. From a substantial distance no one can overlook the sight of the great majestic gothic choir rising like a beacon out of the gentle rolling green landscape.
Pierre and I met Madame Laibe, the Mayor at the mayor’s office where she was enjoying the last hours of her 19-year term. It was the day for municipal elections all over France, and because she (78 years old) was occupied with the polls, she delegated her husband to guide us through the church, but not without insisting that we glance at the town “Terrier”, a worn leather-bound collection of survey maps dating from before the French Revolution.
 Monsieur Laibe, began his presentation of the church with the story of Thibault, the saint, whose life is generously represented in scenes sculpted into the 14th century altarpiece. Nothing special to say about Thibault except that he renounced his noble birth to become a hermetic monk. However what ensued is worth mention. After Thbault’s death, his brother retrieved the corpse and apparently divided it into pieces, or relics, which he spread around France. How the right tibia (which Monsieur Laibe had the kindness to show us) ended up in the little Burgundian village of St Thibault is likely to remain a mystery forever. If the cult of St Thibault, attracting hordes of pilgrims, was famous for centuries, today the saint’s name moves no one.
 In the side chapel of the church is a large wooden reliquary. Pierre immediately recognized the coat of arms of Epoisses engraved on a floor stone. Epoisses is village about 10 km away with a magnificent privately owned medieval chateau. It is also the home of my favorite French cheese that goes by the same name.
“Shall we go there now?” I asked Pierre when M. Laibe finished the guided tour. Pierre looked at his watch. “No, let’s get lost.” And so we did.
We wandered through a part of the Auxois known as “La Montagne” which is unbelievably rich with castles and hamlets, abbeys and communal ovens…. At this time of year, without the lush foliage, there are a thousand things that catch your eye that would be otherwise hidden.
 We followed the Burgundy Canal for miles, and I learned that anyone can rent a ”petit” barge for a day or a week from a tiny little port in the Canal.
Well, rather than go on and on, why don’t you simply come to Burgundy and do an outing with Pierre and me.
Read more about Sherry in Burgundy…
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