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Thursday, May 23rd - Baume-les-Messieurs to Beaune
I have just had the most disconcerting discovery while lying in bed this morning. It has been four weeks since my fall at the border when I entered France during the
wind storm. The swelling and bruising has faded and healed but the occasional sharp pain continues. I expected this to eventually go too, but it has persisted. This morning when I stretch and go to sit up I get another stabbing pain, one larger than usual. I lie back down and press my fingertips to my lower rib cage and sit up again. Something inside is definitely broken, because I felt it turn inward as I sit up! That realization has hit me like a shock. 
I have no idea what this means and whether I will need to end my trip, but I need to make it to a hospital to get an x-ray done and get a doctor's advice. I am sick with worry about it. Every time I feel a pain in my side I feel I am doing some damage and making things worse. I try to explain my concern to Mike who doesn't want to hear about. He rolls his eyes and suppresses a groan, either because he thinks I am a hypochondriac or that I am deliberately causing him unnecessary grief. My existence causes him unnecessary grief, so he should be used to it by now. He's not really a good travel companion as he has little patience for anyone's needs other than his own. 
There's little I can do but put off any medical examination to when I arrive in Dijon two days from now. Today we will cover most of that distance to reach the town of Beaune. After coffee is served to us by our British hosts, we load up and ride to the top end of the valley where there are limestone caves and a waterfall. Mike decides the entrance fee to the caves is too expensive. He doesn't share my passion for underground worlds of wonder. 
He does agree to ride by the abbey to have a closer look on our way back down the valley.
We follow the valley floor north until the towering limestone walls disappear. From there our route is fairly straight to the east and across a flat plain. The weather is in our favour once again. At Saint-Germain-du-Bois, we angle north-west through the towns of Mervans and Allerey-sur-Saone. Once we cross the Saone, the road climbs gently to the edge of the plain where the city of Beaune sits at the base of a range of hills.
We arrive in Beaune in mid-afternoon. It's a small town of perhaps 20,000 people, and known as the wine capital of the Burgundy region. It is famous for its wine tasting festivals and its magnificent, patterned roof tiles, a characteristic trait of this region of France. Mike is more into the wine tasting and I am more into looking at the roofs.
There a one-star hotel with one room available. It has three beds but it is still cheaper than others we are able to find. Mike wants to go to the famous wine-tasting pavilion, but I do not want to pay 150F. I like wine, but in small quantities, and that would not be worth the price. The room has only one key and if I give keep the keys there is no 
concierge and no way for Mike to get back in. I would need to wait at the door for him and he has no idea when he would return. So I give him the keys, which means I cannot leave the room. I lie on the bed and try to sleep, but I instead I fret over what is broken in my rib cage. Mike returns shortly after 8, full of drunken stories about the 37 types of wine he has tasted. If he pukes I will run out the door and hide until he cleans it up, in retribution for his reaction when I was sick in Sagres. But he handles his alcohol better than I do. I do admit I like him better when he's drunk. He has brought back another bottle of "Derriere Les Fagots" - a red this time. We share it and he soaks off the labels once again, while we giggle about it.
PHOTO 1: early morning in Baume-les-Messieurs
PHOTO 2: Mike loading his bike outside of the B&B
PHOTO 3: morning view of cliffs
PHOTO 4: nearing the end of the valley
PHOTO 5: goats in a limestone cave
PHOTO 6: waterfall beside cave entrance
PHOTO 7: Baume Abbey
PHOTO 8: Baume Abbey, entrance to courtyard
PHOTO 9: farmhouse in Baume
PHOTO 10: leaving Baume-les-Messieurs
PHOTO 11: Beaune Cathedral
PHOTO 12: patterned roofs and spires of Beaune
PHOTO 13: half timbered historic Bungundy wine market
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