The vineyards of Beaune France and their beautiful colors in fall

When I was driving to Beaune this week to go grocery shopping, I passed the vineyards of the Côte de Beaune, and I just had to stop my car and get out, and I sat and walked in the vineyards, maybe for an hour, in full awe of all the beautiful colors this time of the year. The vineyards to the south of Dijon, stretching all the way to the small village of Saintenet, are called Côte de Nuit and Côte de Beaune. And they have a very specific thing that I think is unique to the Rhine regions of France, and it's called climat. A climat is a small plot. Each of these plots have their very specific characteristics in terms of the consistency of the soil and their exposure to the sun. And these determine the terroir, the specific taste of the grapes that are grown here, and thus the specific taste of the wine that is made from the grapes. And I believe this is so unique to our region, and the fact that this has been classified as UNESCO World Heritage in 2015 confirms that. And some of these climats may even be surrounded by walls, as you can see here, and it has the name of the plot. So we're looking at all these vineyards here that I'm filming for you, and these are maybe even up to 30 or more small plots. So you can have a wine from Pommard, or from Volnais, or from any other village, but every wine will be different according to the plot that the grape was grown on. I'm working on an exciting project for our future rentals. That is a magazine that will have all of the great addresses and our favorite places around in our region. And I am looking at the best brocante at the moment, and I've never been to this one. I've seen it very often. It's in Nolet, so I finally took the time to go in and meet the lovely lady that has this beautiful brocante shop. So this one is definitely going to go in our magazine with the must-see and must-do places and things. And I was really thrilled to find these old postcards, because I was able to find a couple from our region that were going to hang in the tiny house. As for our renovation projects, we're still working on the tiny house. That is the first thing that we want to get finished. And yes, we are still working on the exterior. We're so dying to get started on the inside, but there's just another couple of bits and pieces, technical bits that Olaf needs to install for the air conditioning and other bits and pieces. But I am trying to start styling a bit as much as I can, so I can start sharing this, for example, on our Instagram, because we really want to share the vibe that we have here and what it will look and feel like with the world and people that may want to come visit in the future. Living in the countryside is wonderful, of course, but it has its little downsides. So lately we noticed we had mice in our cellar. So we took our cat Tigret and sent her out on the hunt. And as it turned out, two mice had built their home in the box with my beautiful personal collection of brokant plates and tableware. Got it! Well done. Thank you. Oh, it's so cute. It's cute, but it's eating everything that's in our cellar and it's peeing in our cellar. Yeah, because it's been eating everything that we bought. Look, now she's going to play with it. Oh, but it's beautiful. Look how beautiful. They really match. They have the same color. Oh, look. The ears are round and big. It's quite a big one, yeah. The ears are big for a mouse. The ears are big. There's another one, Tigret. There's another one. You don't get it. There we go. Oh, my boys helped wash all of these. So, this is my private collection, as in not-for-sale collection. There's a couple of items that I'm keeping at hand and some items that have been sold that I'm keeping either to be shipped or for people to come pick up. But this is the large collection. It's called Roya by Sargamin. And I found this at a charity thrift store maybe about two years ago. And I've been keeping it in our cellar, which I shouldn't have because the mice found it and they made their little home. And this dish. Apparently. Because there was small bits of newspaper in it and mice pee. And this set is not the same one, although it looks similar. It's also by the same brand, but it's a different model. Let me show you. And Sargamin is actually a village in the north, I would say, of France. But they've had many collaborations, so the name changes all the time. So, this is not exactly the same name, but it is the same company. And I found this on the French eBay, Le Bon Coin. And it belonged to a wonderful couple in their 60s. And it had been their, her mom's mom and dad's, and her parents had deceased. And she didn't want to keep this. I need to give this another wash, though. It's been sitting in boxes. And I took it out now. I love it. There's three of these beautiful bowls, large bowls. And then two small, well, small, two serving dishes. This beautiful terrine for soups or maybe even vegetables. Well, you can put anything in it that you want, really. See, and you can see that the glazed part is a bit, changed color a bit, which is not at all a problem. You can just eat from it. And what I like about these, I'm just going to take a couple of plates out so I can show you. This one's dirty, I need to wash it. Is that all of these little plates are different. Look, just look at the decor. Let me see if I've got it upside down. I think it should be like this. I'm watching the screen. So this is one, and then look, the next one is not the same. See, I need to wash this, obviously. See, so they're all different. Let me get another one out. I don't know if you like seeing this. I mean, I loved this when I discovered this. I didn't know, and then I bought them. And I only found out that all of them were different when I started washing them for the first time. See? So it's almost like watching a movie, all of these plates. See, even this one isn't entirely the same. You think it's probably the same, but then you have a closer look. And I just thought that was so amazing. And the quality of this one is just, it's really incredible. And it was so nice to meet the people and ask them, you know, whose this was, and the memories they had of it, and that's what I like about these old pieces. This is where I have stored most of the items I think I will use, either in our personal kitchen or in the rentals. And then everything else is in boxes so we can start renovating. We'll live in this space and we'll start renovating the part that we currently live in. So I'll keep you posted, of course. I just wanted to show you this gorgeous, gorgeous collection. I'm so happy with it. So this is where we keep all of the building materials. This is all for the cabin, installation for the cabin. And this is where we stored the verrière that I went to pick up. This one, that's the one I picked up in Paris. And I wanted to show you where that goes. I don't know if you see the opening there. So in the future we'll have a small space here. That will be my future brocante shop. And the verrière that I found almost fits that opening perfectly. And then the other one is wrapped in this blanket. And that is the one that we're going to use in the tiny house. And that I want to go brush and varnish because I want to leave it as is. You can't see but I'll pull it out so I can show you. So this is the verrière, the window frame that we want to use in the tiny house. And it's quite rusty in some bits and it has different layers of paint on it. And I'm actually trying to keep this look. So I'm going to start by giving it a brush. Just with a metal brush, taking off all the loose bits of paint. What do you think Drew? What would Drew do? I'm thinking after many years working on a mech, you're now working on windows. Turn it around and clean the inside. This is the side where the windows were attached or I don't know how you call that. Put into the frame. So it has many layers of putty I think is the word. That I need to take off else when we start putting in new windows that won't stick. Next I'm going to varnish it and this is a spray I found in the hardware store. And it says it just needs two layers and it can go on the rusty bits as well. And then I can keep this rusty look. I need to put on one thin coat and then wait for 10 minutes and I can put on a second one. Second coat is done. I'm going to leave it to dry. I think it's going to be really beautiful. And of course I'll show you when we continue with this project in another video. Now I guess this is just one of those vlogs where I just take you with me. With all the tiny little things and projects that I'm doing. So I've taken you to one of my favorite places, Le Café du Nord. Which is about 10 minutes away from our home. And I go there pretty often because the internet connection at home is still very poor. So I go there and work for my training business. And I really love this place because all of their meals, everything you can eat here is homemade 100%. And it's all organic and from local farmers. So what's really nice about this restaurant is that they organize all kinds of events. So for example art exhibitions or music nights but also cinema. So we live in the countryside of course so there's not many cinemas around. Or we would have to drive maybe for 20 minutes or half an hour. So in this little room there is what we call a mobile theater cinema. So that's a person who comes in with all his gear. And he selects movies every month. And then basically travels around the countryside from one place to the other to offer the movies. So then this area is set up with all of these chairs and comfortable cushions in them. And then there is the big screen. It's still here because they had a cinema movie night here two nights ago. And then we just all sit here and watch a movie which is really nice. And the restaurant also offers dinner up front before the movie. And it just makes for a very comfortable cozy night out just in the countryside 10 minutes away from where we live. I don't know if you can read French but if you can read this menu and let me know in a comment what you would pick if you would have lunch or dinner here. And now it's time for me to pack up and go home. Because this morning I thought, you know what? I think I'm going to go to Provence tomorrow. If you've seen my earlier vlog you may know that I wanted to go there and things came up and it didn't happen. And this morning somehow I thought, you know what? I feel like going there this week. And I contacted my friend in the UK and said, are you still up for it? And she just sent me a message and said that she booked a flight. And so it's going to happen. I'm packing my van and we're going on a totally unplanned trip to the beautiful Provence region in the south of France. And of course I'm going to take you with me.