Farnsniente

The sign at the candy store.

Un bien bon bonbon

—

in
📍 Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France

Photos

Trip index

Summary

We spent the day touring around the hilly, green, pastoral Côte d’Or (Gold Coast) in the north of Burgundy, hitting the France trifecta – hill town, religious monument and château. The hill town was the beautiful Plus Beaux Village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. Seriously, a picture perfect, flower-filled little place with the “factory” where the very famous Anis de Flavigny candy is crafted and has been for centuries. Next was the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Abbeye de Fontenay, a Cistercian abbey founded by Saint Bernard in 1118 and beautifully restored. The château was Bussy-Rabutin, the exile home of Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy who “fell into disgrace for allegedly having taken part in an orgy at the Château de Roissy near Paris, during Holy Week. Bussy was ordered by Louis XIV to retire to his estates…“.

Details

We wake, pleased with ourselves that we have a plan to recover our “left behind” luggage. The execution of that plan will be tomorrow. For today we will head out of town to a couple of nearby villages, to a chateau and an abbey.

Our first stop is Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. In France towns and village can apply for the title of “One of the prettiest villages in France” (Plus Beau Village) and/or “A flowery village” (Une Ville Fleuris). A committee decides if your pride-and-joy qualifies or not, and to what degree. If yes, like a Michelin starred  restaurant, you’ll be granted one or two or maybe up to four ‘flowers’. Karen follows this closely and as we travel around France, if we’re close to a “plus beau village” or a “ville fleuris”, we’ll check it out. Flavigny-sur-Ozerain has at least one of these.

The village is also the home of the storefront (exterior) used in the 2000 film Chocolat with Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Leslie Caron. And it’s home to a long-time confection factory (and store) where they make famous candies. The confections are little white balls of candy with a spec of anis (licorice?) in the middle. Some are smaller or larger depending on which you buy. They have a wide variety of flavors to choose from and a different package for each. They have bigger oval tins, smaller tins, rectangular boxes, and on and on. 

They have a set up where you can get one of these candies for free to taste for yourself. It’s all automated. There’s a little laser watching for a hand to be placed below the dispenser. If it detects a hand one candy is dropped. They have eleven of these machines. I do try one of the Ginger flavor and one of the Orange Flower flavor. I don’t know if it keeps track of how quickly it’s dispensing candies. Can I just stand there and get another free one, and so on? I don’t press my luck. 

We check out the store, in great depth, and plan to come back for the museum and factory tour. For now, though, we head out to walk around the town. It is cute and more than a few of the attractive places are for sale. We ponder living here. The streets are from back when there were no cars, so they’re narrow and now when there is a car or truck plying the steep streets, it’s a challenge. The pedestrians (us) make it even more tricky. 

We find the set of the movie Chocolat (exterior only) and see more flowers and more places we could buy, if we were so inclined. We soon find ourselves back at the confectionery store/factory and absorb some of the information about how they make and package the yummy white balls. Much of the work is automated and mesmerizing in its repetitiveness. Some of the work is manual, and also very repetitive. We ponder whether they occasionally have someone totally lose it, or wind up with some awful ‘repetitive motion’ injury. We don’t think they were intending to convey these thoughts with their promotional videos. 

In a courtyard we install ourselves at a small table and order lunch. We’re not alone. This seems to be the place to eat in town. As I sip my beer and we await our food, we watch the nearby table with the store workers relaxing for their long lunch break. They do chit chat, but mostly they smoke. They seem to be trying to outdo each other as to how many cigarettes they can get through during their undoubtedly long break. 

Our food arrives and it’s very good and healthy. We’re pleasantly surprised. We pass on coffee or dessert. There are other villages and chateaux to check out. 

Our next stop is the Fontenay Abbey. All I know about this place is that Karen wants to come. We pay our admission fee and are pointed in the direction of the start of the self-guided tour. Our little booklet explains that the huge church was constructed by Saint Bernard, which I find suspicious, knowing how uncoordinated dogs can be when building large structures. 

The Abbey contains oodles of buildings and gardens and we are able to go through most of them. Outside it’s cool but inside it’s damn cold. I should have worn pants and brought a light jacket. The dormitory is one enormous room. St. B said all the monks had to sleep in the same room. We see the forge, with its bellows and the waterwheel-driven hammer (sill working, if you had anything you needed forged). All of the buildings are in incredible shape. I’m happy we went and would recommend it to anyone visiting the area. 

At our next stop (the château was Bussy-Rabutin) the ticket seller asks if we’d been to the Fontenay Abbey. Why yes, we just came from there, here are our tickets! We each get a 1.50 euros discount here. Nice. Then again, the place closes in a half hour, so good luck seeing everything. 

On our walk to the main building we hear a deafening roar. It’s a huge bee hive and bees coming and going. I make a quick movie so we can remember the sound. Walking on Karen asks if that’s a bee on my shirt. Yes. Yes it is. 

The place is amazing. Like so many chateaux it’s symmetrical left and right. They take advantage of that to make one side 17th century and the other side 19th century, in terms of furniture and decorations. It’s fascinating. This is how the richest of the richest lived back then. Give me the early 2000s any day. 

We only get to see the gardens from afar. Apparently you have to cross the path of these angry bees to get there (or maybe we misheard). Anyway, there are people in the gardens, inspecting up close, and we’re not among them. 

On our drive ‘home’ we stop and get a birthday card (or three) for my Aunt back in the states. Her 93rd is coming up. Quite the accomplishment and she’s going strong.

At our hotel we have dinner where we’ve been having breakfast. It’s really good and 1/8th the cost of the two star Michelin restaurant yesterday. Oh well. 

Photos

[Note: to view the photos in chronological order, start at the bottom :-/ ]

Delicious main course for my dinner. Salmon with cheese and almonds on a bed of risotto.
The ‘back yard’ with all its plantings. It looks awesome but a big angry nest of hard working bees kept us from visiting the gardens.
On to our next stop. A Chateau. Wisteria seem to be very popular (and happy) in this part of France.
There were no smart phones with photo galleries, so they put them on the wall. You visited, you got your picture put on the wall (including one Benjamin Franklin, not shown here).
Inside one half is decorated in the 17th century style, and the other in the 19th century fashion, or something like that.
The château was Bussy-Rabutin. Plenty of room and a moat for protection.
Lots of flowers, as there are everywhere at this time of year, it seems. The big ones are peonies.
Far off the ground, up on the slate roof, is a worker, accustomed to working at heights.
Karen in front of a plane tree, planted back in the 1700s.
Once heated this oversized hammer helped to shape the metal. It’d driven from the back side by a waterwheel.
In the forge they make their own wind, to feed the fire to heat the metal. The big bellows probably gave some monk quite the upper body workout.
The cloisters, too, get attention, understandably. This place has been very well maintained. This way of arranging the space works out well, for tasks and relaxing. There’s light, sun (if it’s sunny), cover (if it’s rainy), and protection from the wind.
This is the dormitory for the monks. Saint Bernard said that all of the monks have to sleep in a single room. The impressive roof structure is much ballyhooed.
This is the church built way back when by Saint Bernard. It’s huge and very cold, compared to the outside temperature.
The shop’s sign has a cute slogan: “A very good candy!” which in French (un bien bon bonbon) is fun to say.
Back at the bon-bon shop, there’s a museum, game room, and factory tour, as well as a patio with a cafe. We park ourselves here for lunch. One of the tables has the shop workers on their long lunch break, each trying to outdo the other for how many cigarettes can be smoked at one sitting.
Speaking of bonbons, the movie Chocolat was filmed somewhere else for the scenes with the inside of the store, but for the exterior, this is it, here in this very village. And they’re proud.
This place has an ancient wisteria vine, not in bloom. More importantly there’s a “for sale” sign that catches someone’s eye.
The village is indeed “plus beau”. The buildings have (mostly) been well maintained and there are plants and flowering bushes and vines everywhere.
While the candy may have been around forever, these laser operated bonbon dispensers, for samples, are ‘très moderne’.
At the candy store they have many different sizes, shapes, and materials for the packaging of the bonbons (candies). They’re famous. Even on the autoroute, when hyping this part of France, they single out this particular factory. It’s been here for a very long time.
On our way to our first Plus Beau Village we pass this lock and the lock keeper’s house. Picturesque with the bike path beside. Both the lock and the path seem to get regular use.