Beaujolais Region

August 9th--We were slower than we had planned this morning. We had breakfast downstairs in the hotel. They have a small room that serves basic, bread & breakfast style meals. So, it was a little before 11:00 before heading out to go rent our car. We were told to walk to the train station close to our hotel to rent a car from Hertz. On our way to the train station, Austin was running and fell down. He fell smack dab into the only pile of mud on the pedestrian street. When he stood up, mud was all over his shirt and jeans. So, Mike and Abby continued on to the train station while Austin and I walked back to the hotel. Mike and Abby were going to get the car and then come pick us up at the hotel. Austin and I made it quickly back to the hotel to change his clothes and clean up the muddy ones. We were done in plenty of time to make it back downstairs and wait for a while. I looked up at one point and time and couldn't believe that I actually saw Mike and Abby walking back toward us. That only meant one thing to me "they didn't get a car". Well, it turns out that since it was Sunday, the Hertz center was not open at this train station. So, we took a taxi to another train station, but Hertz was closed for lunch when we arrived. We just started asking any car rental desk if we could rent a car. Europcar had no cars available, but finally we found one with National. A little behind schedule, we pulled out of the parking lot a little before noon. Luckily for us though, the exit we took for the Beaujolais region was only about 30 minutes North of Lyon. The unlucky thing (at least for Mike and I) was there was a McDonald's right at this exit. The kids wouldn't take NO for an answer so we went through the drive thru. So, lets get this straight...the only places we've eaten since being back in France are Subway and McDonald's...real French, huh? Anyway, with our Big Macs in hand, we continued our drive heading towards the town of Beaujeu in hopes that the Information office would be open. When we got there, it was closed for lunch (it seems most places around here close between 12:00 and 2:30 for lunch). So, we decided to drive up North to another town, Fleurie, that had an Information office as well. When we arrived at this office, it was 1:30 and the office opened back up at 2:00. It worked out well though because there was a playground close by so we killed the 30 minutes there. At 2:00, we went inside and got a lot of helpful information on the wine caves in the Beaujolais area. So, our route began...we drove to Villie-Morgon where we visited the Caveau Cru Morgon. We got to sample wonderful Morgon red wine here. From Villie-Morgon, we drove to St. Etienne-des-Oullieres where we visited the Cellier des Saint Etienne. It was here that we got to sample several different wines from the region: Beaujolais, Beaujolais Village, and Brouilly. We met this really nice guy there that spoke pretty good English so he was able to help explain some of the wines to us. From St. Etienne, we drove to Oingt. Now mind you, this area is not very big so we were constantly going through small towns every 5 minutes. We traveled down many curvy roads and through many small towns. It was a great French experience. Once we arrived in Oingt though, we didn't really have a plan. So, we found a parking spot and walked around the old town for a while. We climbed up the stairs into the church and then behind it to get a great view of the wine region. From here, we walked into the city center and found the Cave St. Laurent d' Oingt. The guy in there was so friendly and we probably sampled the best Beaujolais wine we've ever had. We are hoping to be able to find it in the States someday. By the time we finished up in Oingt, it was after 6:00 and everyone was getting hungry. Well, since it was Sunday in a small town there weren't any restaurants open for dinner so we decided to head back to Lyon. After turning the car back in, we took a taxi back to the Old Town area. This time we knew dinner would be available because it was well after 7:00 and we were in the mood for French food. We picked a restaurant and sat outside under their cover. Well, I use cover loosely because it started raining and we kept having to scoot our table and chairs further in to avoid getting really wet. All in all, it was great food though and a wonderful French day!