Other than booking the house months ago, and taxis to get us to the wedding and back and from the train station, we had not done a lot of research on where we were staying for four nights. But our place was right on the edge of town. Unfortunately, the town, while gorgeous, had literally nothing in it. I have a feeling it did at one point, pre-cars, but now, nothing. Luckily, we realized this pretty quickly and Rosa and Mitch had the cab driver take them to a large grocery store 20 minutes away in Montbard, and they came back with wine and cheese. Perhaps other items, but they got the basics anyway.

Our house was more of a villa really. Probably the nicest place I’ve stayed. Most importantly, besides the a/c which cooled at least half the house (there are sometimes advantages of sleeping in the living room), the house had a decent sized pool, where we would proceed to spend most of the next 4 days, when not attending wedding festivities. This was particularly important as we had landed in rural France in the middle of the heat wave. It hit 41 in the shade apparently. Officials were telling people not to drive (not sure this is a thing at home, but maybe that’s because we tend not to have other transportation options). Luckily, we had a bakery deliver us chocolate croissants and brioche every morning, so we didn’t have to leave the house for the most part.

After spending the first night in the pool and the hot tub (it cooled down at night, ever so slightly), we headed to Chatel Gerard for the wedding, a small village about 30 minutes away. The wedding was taking place in an old castle, which we spent the night exploring and taking fun photos, while imbibing in the wine and cheese they provided, for the night before the wedding.

The wedding itself took place at 5pm on Friday, pretty much the hottest part of the day. Needless to say, the ceremony was very quick (but beautiful) and we all quickly moved to the shade to get drinks. Luckily, there was also a pool on the grounds, so the night ended in a big pool party.

The day after the wedding we had one last pool day, finishing off all the red wine and cheese we had bought. The next day, most people headed to Paris, while I got a ride to the train station to head back towards Spain, with friends on their way to Avignon.