Beaune, France, Burgundy’s Wine Capital, is Rich with Ancient History

I’m walking along a promenade on ancient ramparts (La Promenade des Remparts). The pathway encircles the old town of Beaune, the celebrated wine capital of Burgundy (Bourgogne) in the Côte d’Or department in eastern France. This strategic fortification, with its thick stone walls, bastions, watch towers, and vestiges of a wide moat, has ensured the defense of Beaune for centuries.

Built in stages between the 12th and 17th centuries, the ramparts are largely intact. What still exists is surprisingly well preserved. Even now, there’s no doubt the ramparts could deter a roving band of Middle Ages marauders from sacking the town.

The promenade is about 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) long, and open to pedestrians, cars, bicycles, and scooters. The walkway’s surface is an undulating and alternating mix of small, paved streets, gravelly trails, flights of steps, steeply sloped ramps, jutting tree roots, and unevenly worn cobblestones. All are possible hazards that could provoke a stumble, so I focus on my footsteps as much as the view ahead.

Despite the many access points radiating from the historic center city (centre ville) to the ramparts, I hadn’t noticed them right away when I arrived in Beaune. Then again, most of the buildings are themselves stone. Undoubtedly, the ramparts were suitably camouflaged and likely an unexpected obstacle for would-be attackers back in the day. Furthermore, I’m pleading jet lag, the bleary result of 24 hours of travel and layovers for my husband, Bill, and me from our home in Charlotte, NC.

For the moment, anyway, the promenade seems almost secret, for I’m strolling long stretches without passing anyone. There certainly are telltale signs of current-day life amid these timeless walls  – occupied residences (some sporting old-fashioned TV antennas), well-tended courtyards, small businesses, wine domaines, and traffic signs. Actually, I’m enjoying my solitude. Letting my imagination run a bit amok, I feel like a peripatetic time traveler straddling the ages.

While the ramparts offers its own history lesson, I’ve also made it my launching point to discover and explore historic Beaune from on high and off the beaten track from the busy tourist flow below.

History is pervasive in Beaune

Interactive maps posted around the ramparts pinpoint 17 key landmarks that invite a closer look.

Check out Beaune Castle (Château de Beaune, number 1), completed in 1527. Today, amid a creatively trimmed landscape and installations of modern sculptures, the castle towers serve as wine cellars for Maison Bouchard Père et Fils. Notice the grandeur of Number 11, the Saint-Martin bastion built in 1637. It now goes by the name Square des Lions because of the two fierce, feline sculptures guarding the entrance to a small park studded with statues. And marvel at the hulking height of number 13, the arched, ornate Porte Saint-Nicolas from 1770, which once featured a fortified gate with a drawbridge.

Approaching the number 8 marker to read about the former site of the 16th-century Cordeliers tower, I do a double take.

Up, over, and beyond a high stone wall topped with randomly cascading greenery is a rectangular rooftop interspersed with several stone chimneys and a spire. I realize I’m looking at the back of the famed Hôtel-Dieu Museum, the centerpiece of Beaune’s historic town center.

This vibrant building is a stellar example of Renaissance architecture, and its boldly hued, flat-tiled roof is emblematic of the surrounding wine region. Long ago, Flemish artisans conceived this distinctive rooftop of multi-colored glazed tiles in a vigorous, geometric pattern, now sparkling in the full sunlight. Befitting Beaune’s fabled wine heritage, the shades of red, green, and gold represent the colors of the fall grape harvest.

Dating from 1443, the imposing Hôtel-Dieu was the main structure of the Hospices de Beaune. The complex served as a hospital and refuge for the poor until the early 1970s, when a modern hospital opened.

An order of nuns administered the Hôtel-Dieu. They cared for their patients in a timbered, dormitory-like room with a soaring ceiling and parallel rows of curtained box-like beds in richly hued red situated head to foot.

If you were elderly, ill, disabled, pregnant, or simply in need of refuge, the nuns welcomed you. If you lived in times before the advent of effective medicines and treatments…well, good luck. Knock on the door hoping for admittance and, especially, a cure for your disease, and a nun would have said, not at all reassuringly: “You’re not completely dead yet,” according to our tour guide.

Underground treasures

I’ve traveled through a virtual time portal that’s transported me far, far, and I mean really far – all the way back to the 4th century.

Before, I was on high, upon the ramparts in open air, with present-day Beaune spread before me.

Now, I’m deep in the darkened belly of Beaune, touring most of the 2.5 acres of underground wine cellars of Joseph Drouhin with Bill and a random group of six other wine aficionados. Joseph Drouhin Domaine is one of the largest wine estates with a wide-ranging presentation of Burgundy’s terroirs. The company owns 200 acres of vineyards throughout Burgundy, covering almost 90 different appellations.

We’re surrounded by dimly lit, narrow passages of earth-colored limestone. Some are lined with racks upon racks of wine-filled bottles. The passages lead us to vaulted rooms with hundreds (maybe thousands?) of oak barrels filled with aging wine and stacked just so.

“Keep low,” urges our guide, Julie, as we follow her in single file.

I tread cautiously through corridors that stretch, turn, climb, and dip. I duck under the low-slung, medieval-height archways and roofs to save myself a whacked forehead. The air in this subterranean chamber is humid, damp, close, and tinged with a faint whiff of dust and mold – the same non-toxic type of white or gray mold that forms on aging cheese. Some 150,000 bottles exist throughout the cellars, and 95% of them are aging. The remaining 5% weren’t sold, but they stay here anyway for decoration.

Down here, Julie tells us, are the origins of Beaune and “where its history began.”

Monks who constructed and worshipped at the Basilica Collégiale Notre-Dame also built these cellars beneath Beaune in the 13th century. During a previous whirl around the ramparts, I’d spotted the church’s massive dome from multiple vantage points, and stopped in for a closer look. The church, which houses a remarkable collection of 15th-century tapestries illustrating the life of the Virgin Mary, stands adjacent to the Drouhin shop at street level. The powerful Dukes of Burgundy wrested control, adding to the cellars in the 14th century.

Prior to all of them, however, were the Romans. They came to this area (which actually had been settled earlier in prehistoric times) sometime in the 300s. The Romans established camp, and built a huge, protective castrum, or fort, around the camp. Up until the end of their empire, the Romans prospered here and grew grapes, made wine, and certainly drank wine. Much later, the Dukes of Burgundy built directly on the old Roman walls. In essence, the Beaune of today rests on the foundation of the Beaune of yesterday.

In Drouhin’s cellars, there’s clear physical evidence of this expansive time span. I stare transfixed at the remains of a wall from a tower the Romans constructed with stones set in a fishbone pattern, which the Dukes of Burgundy later topped with straight stones. Behold…a merging of the 4th and 14th centuries with 21st-century visitors as witnesses. My mind boggles.

“That’s huge,” Julie acknowledges, smiling. “Romans were the enemy, but we’ve forgiven them because they brought us wine.”

After that reckoning, I need a drink. I know Bill does, and I suspect the others do, too.

As if on cue, Julie obliges by leading us into the next chamber. Awaiting us is a tasting table simply set with six, select bottles of Drouhin wines in soldierly alignment – three whites, three reds, and three of which are highly regarded Premiers Crus. We toast and drink to our health. À notre santé.

Shopping at the Beaune market

It’s Saturday, and the grand, semi-weekly outdoor market is underway. From early morning to early afternoon, the market is the energetic, colorful meet-and-greet destination for Beaune residents and travelers alike.

First, I enter the Ramparts Promenade at the St. Jean steps for my daily spins. Upon exiting my elevated vantage point at the Madeleine steps, I head toward Place Carnot.

This is the main square in Beaune, and it’s always bustling. Cafés, brasseries, restaurants, pâtisseries, wine shops, chocolatiers, my go-to cheese shop (Fromagerie Alain Hess), specialty foods shops, real estate offices, and a few boutique shops abound. Today, some brocante vendors have set up their tables and wares on the periphery of Place Carnot’s grassy center. Food is my interest, however, so I continue around the corner to Place de la Halle adjacent to the tourist entry to Hôtel-Dieu.

Here begins the multitude of food stalls. Set up both indoors and outdoors under canvas awnings, they are seemingly full to the point of collapsing, bearing gorgeously tempting goods from nearby farms, bakers, butchers, fishmongers, dairies, and other producers.

First, I enter the long line for the famed poulet de Bresse chicken breasts. Then, I buy briny black olives, fragrant rosemary stems, hummus scented with lemon, and six brown eggs cradling yolks of intense yellow orange. Next, I select purple figs, earthy cèpes, crisp haricots verts, avocados ripe for today’s lunch, a rust-toned potimarron squash, freshly picked lettuce still speckled with dirt and dew from the field, and assorted other vegetables destined for salad toppings. Appetizing aromas emanating from mobile rotisseries draw me ever onward to Place Fleury. Dozens of skewered whole chickens, their cavities seasoned with savory herbs, drip hot, flavorful fat onto trays of warm potatoes below.

I love shopping at French markets. Granted, I go for practical reasons… to buy fresh, seasonal, local ingredients for cooking, and to practice my rudimentary French language skills. But also, I value carving my own small niche into Beaune’s legacy by immersing myself in an essential cultural, social, and economic ritual that harks back centuries…and one that likely will go on in much the same treasured manner for years to come.

Once again, that heady, dual sensation of being transported back in time while standing firmly in the present is absolutely riveting.