Love in Burgundy, France

June 30, 2013 marked one year of our civil ceremony in Boston last year, so we decided to do a little something special and go to neighboring Burgundy, France for the weekend.  Burgundy is only 2 hours away from Geneva by car, so it is an easy weekend trip.  I found an adorable hotel in the town of Beaune, in the middle of wine country. We fell in love with its cute courtyard and details...

Hotel courtyard

This wins the award for coolest bathroom ever, toilet in an old wine cave!

 Since the weather wasn't great on Saturday, we wandered around town to check out the sites (and wine).

Tasting some wines while wearing my new leather jacket, so "Euro"!

"Marche des vins" where you are essentially left free to wander around wine cellars and taste 13, yes 13, different wines. Thank goodness I'm not in college anymore or this would have been a dangerous place

We have a new-found obsession for escargot, I was deathly afraid to try them but they have the most amazing sauce on them of garlic, oil, and parsley. I think we had about 4 orders of escargot in one day because they were so good.

For dinner, Ryan booked a surprise dinner at the most amazing restaurant we have ever been to, Le Benaton. Talk about a food "experience", this dinner was a show in itself. We ordered the three course menu, but didn't realize that standard with every meal are also "pre" and "in between" courses, fancy pants!! Every dish was super creative both in its taste and presentation. It was fun to keep guessing what would come next. The sweetest part of the night was the surprise happy anniversary cake that they brought to the table in between dessert courses. Check out the collage below to see all of our amazing courses!

Dinner picture

The next day we checked out some of the vineyards and chateaus in the surrounding countryside.

All said and done, Burgundy was an easy and relaxing weekend trip from Geneva that we are looking forward to doing a few more times while we live here and as the first year of our civil ceremony comes to a close, it was nice to celebrate a year of love, adventure, challenges overcome, and optimism for the future (and for our actual wedding ceremony and reception in March!). We feel lucky to have each other on this journey called life -- I love you Ryan :) 

Now the only question remains... what do we celebrate after the wedding next March? June 30 and/or March 1, only one? both? and do you count next March as our first year or second year anniversary? Any recommendations out there?