Smells like death

I thought that after I was rescued by helicopter on Mt. Blanc my adventures were over, but I was wrong.

The next day I left my cozy hotel in Chamonix and drove to a place I’d found to stay outside of Vézelay, in Burgundy. I’d chosen it quickly and pretty much randomly. Exterior looked impressive online, it was well-positioned for my final sprint into Paris, on the edge of a huge national forest, not too expensive, and oddly it had rooms available on the last weekend of summer break — a major time for travel for the French.

To get to the hotel I drove through some truly beautiful countryside. Rolling hills of cut hay, old trees, tiny stone villages, small rushing rivers, and white cows in green fields. I get to the Château d’Island and it is as stunning as the pictures. The parking lot was empty except for one other car when I arrived. After a few minutes of standing in the parking lot an older man came out and led me to the base of a staircase in a tower. A woman came out, and instead brought me into the bar which was clearly never used and had me write my name and the date on a slip of paper. No ID or credit card required.

She led me to another staircase and up three flights of stairs to a room in the attic. It was then that I started to notice the smell. It was similar to the scent of a grandparent’s house that had been shut up for a long time, but like there had been generations and generations of grandparents who feared fresh air and replacing any furniture or upholstery. It smelled like death.

I loved my room, tucked into the corner of the attic, with an amazing array of beams, including one that grew out of the middle of the top of the mattress. There was a dormer window set near the floor with a wide sill where you could sit, touch the roof tiles, and gaze over the gables and gardens.

The woman then showed me around the rest of the house, including a salon that had original paintings from the 1400s, when the place was built, and the breakfast room with a fireplace almost tall enough to walk into, topped with copper. It was all stunning. It felt somehow naked — like nothing had been touched in centuries. An endangered species of place before it gets Relais-et-Châteaued. I was in heaven.

I left to go a few miles into Vézelay for dinner and when I returned I drove right past the hotel by mistake. It was easy to do this because the whole place was dark. Really dark. I parked, now the only car in the lot. They didn’t mention how I should get in after hours so I was relieved to see that the door to the tower was wide open, lit only by a couple of glowing green nightlights.

I get to the room, lock the door, open the window to get some fresh air, and get ready to go to sleep, placing extra pillows around the beam that’s even with my head in the middle of the bed in case I roll over quickly in my sleep.

All went well till the bat flew in.

When I first heard the loud rustling noise I thought a rat had come along the gutter and hopped into my open window. I was relieved when I turned on the light and saw it was just a bat. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to go back to sleep which turned out to be impossible because I’d hear the whoosh of flight and feel the lightest puff of air as the bat flew close over my head about every half hour. The problem was in the forest of beams in the tall peaked ceiling there was no way to tell whether it had left or was still in the room. And the window where he’d come in was near the floor and small. After several hours awake I got an ingenious idea, or at least it seemed so at the time. I turned on my iPhone flashlight and placed it outside on the roof, shining up, hoping it would attract bugs, which would attract the bat. I don’t know if this worked, or exhaustion took over, but I finally did get back to sleep for a couple hours.

The interesting thing is that after my Paris stay, when I am making the return road trip back to Italy with two friends, we book an overnight at a hotel in prime Burgundy territory, right outside Beaune. It is lovely, we have one of the best meals I’ve had in forever, sleep in comfortable, well-appointed rooms that are clean and don’t smell of death. And it is uninteresting and soulless. I realize my friends and I need to backtrack about an hour and a half to return to the Château de la Mort. Fortunately my friends are really good sports and trust me. No other guests were there when we arrived and the hostess showed us every room — quite the endeavour as it involved a huge mass of keys and considerable time to lock and unlock each door. Each was completely different and widely varied, as did the level of the château’s unique smell.

One of our favorite moments occurs over our two breakfasts. They have classical music playing from a station with a considerable amount of static over speakers that must have been from the 1970s. When this aria came on my friend had to capture it. We decided it was a fitting soundtrack of the place.

Although my friends were definitely aware of the rough edges, I interviewed them last night over some wine and captured their stream of consciousness memories. “A vanishing place that will never be again.” “There was no ‘show’. Most hotels feel like they are putting on a show, but not here.” “A privilege to see the unrenovated place before it is renovated beyond redemption.” “Unusually relaxed — more relaxing than being at a spa.” “Like time travel. My room had a desk and chair in front of the full length window set up to write letters.” “No pretension. It’s pure, not packaged for tourists.” And my personal favorite — “weird as shit”.

Trip Notes:

Château d’Island is located between the gorgeous villages of Vézelay and Avallon.

Château de Saulon is the place we stayed outside of Beaune and very near the famed Route Vins. Looks amazing on the homepage picture, but marred on the other side by the addition of an glass eating area and glass elevator. However their farm to table restaurant is worth a trip to Burgundy by itself.

Lunch at Olivier Leflaive, one of the top white wine makers in the world. We ate and tasted a about 10 glasses (between us all) of their wines. We tried two Puligny-Montrachet 1er Crus were from the same row of grapes in the same field, but one bottle was from the top of the rolling hill (a 2015 Champ Gains) and another bottle was from the less-arid bottom (a 2015 Renferts). And they tasted completely different. We also had a glass of a wine from the same field which is available only in the restaurant because so few bottles are made and it was breathtaking. For you wine buffs, just to brag, it was their Les Pucelles wine from 2011.

I’m going to do another Itch on Vézelay and Avallon because they are that good.