When to go to Burgundy?
→ The detailed month-by-month page, with real weather records
Best time: May to June and September to October
At a glance
Why go to Burgundy?
Few French regions pack so many masterpieces into an hour's drive. Dijon keeps the palace and tombs of the dukes who, in the 15th century, made Paris tremble; Beaune has preserved its hospital of 1443 and its cellars intact; Fontenay and Cluny are reminders that Burgundian monks shaped medieval Europe; Vézelay, Autun and Tournus line up three high points of Romanesque art. Between these stones, the world's most precise vineyard divides its climats into tiny plots, each of which, since the monks of Cîteaux, has carried a name, a taste and sometimes a dizzying price.
Yet drinking a simple village Burgundy in a tasting cellar, at €15 or 20 a bottle, remains within everyone's reach. Burgundy appeals to wine lovers, of course, but also to families: Guédelon, the Auxois park, the canals you can cruise by boat without a licence and the Morvan with its lakes and forests make for active holidays far from the queues. Couples will find B&Bs in the villages of the Côte, Michelin-starred tables and Saturday markets that smell of Époisses.
Cyclists have the Voie des Vignes and the flat, shady towpaths of the Burgundy Canal. And Paris is only 1h35 away by TGV, which makes a weekend decided the night before entirely possible.
Map of Burgundy: what is where?
The map shows the 6 places covered in this guide, to picture the distances and plan your route.
- Hospices de Beaune
- Dijon, Palace of the Dukes
- Route des Grands Crus
- Fontenay Abbey
- Vézelay Basilica
- Château de Guédelon
How much does a trip to Burgundy cost?
| Style | Per day | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Backpacker | €60-85 per day | campsite or simple B&B, markets and picnics in the vines, free visits (Dijon, Vézelay, Route des Grands Crus, Solutré) and a tasting at €10-15. |
| Comfort | €120-170 per day | three-star hotel or winegrower's guesthouse, one restaurant a day, the Hospices, the Clos de Vougeot and Fontenay, two or three bottles to take home. |
| Premium | €300 and up per day | hotel with spa in Beaune or a château hotel in the vines, Michelin-starred tables, a private estate visit with a premier cru tasting (€100 to 200 per person), a hot-air balloon flight over the climats. Accommodation prices double on the weekend of the Hospices auction in November. |
Is Burgundy safe?
Burgundy poses no particular safety problems. The thing to watch is the road: the small country roads through the vineyards are busy with bikes and farm machinery, especially during the harvest, and drink-driving checks are frequent around Beaune. Heatwaves are common in July-August and the vines offer no shade, so set off early by bike. In the Morvan forests and the Auxois, watch for ticks from May to October. Swimming is allowed in the Morvan lakes (Settons, Pannecière, Saint-Agnan) at the lifeguarded beaches in July-August; the rivers and canal are not supervised. In winter, the Morvan and the heights of Vézelay can be snowbound.
What to see and do in Burgundy
- Hospices de Beaune
- Route des Grands Crus
- Château du Clos de Vougeot
- Dijon and the Palace of the Dukes
- Fontenay Abbey
- Vézelay Basilica
- Château de Guédelon
- Rock of Solutré
Hospices de Beaune
The Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune was founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to Duke Philip the Good, and his wife Guigone de Salins, to care for the poor at the end of the Hundred Years' War. The building, the most accomplished example of Burgundian Flamboyant Gothic, worked as a hospital until 1971 before becoming a museum. The main courtyard, with its roofs of glazed Burgundy tiles in geometric patterns and its ornate dormer windows, is the most reproduced image of the region. Inside, the great Hall of the Poor with its canopied beds, the kitchen with its automaton spit-turner, the apothecary and Rogier van der Weyden's Last Judgement polyptych make up a tour of an hour and a half. The Hospices own 60 hectares of vines, whose auction, held every third Sunday in November, is the oldest charity sale in the world and draws buyers from across the planet.
Dijon and the Palace of the Dukes
The former capital of the Duchy of Burgundy, Dijon has kept a 97-hectare historic centre, a protected conservation area and UNESCO-listed as part of the climats. The Palace of the Dukes and States of Burgundy, remodelled from the 14th to the 18th century, houses the town hall and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, one of the oldest in France, where the tombs of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless lie surrounded by their processions of alabaster mourners. The Owl's Trail, marked by bronze arrows set in the pavement, leads from Rue des Forges to the iron-framed covered market of 1875 and the church of Notre-Dame, whose little carved owl is said to grant wishes when stroked with the left hand. The Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie et du Vin, opened in 2022 on the site of the former general hospital, adds exhibitions, cellars and restaurants. Mustard, gingerbread, blackcurrant and jambon persillé can be found at the covered market four mornings a week.
Route des Grands Crus
Created in 1937, the Route des Grands Crus is the oldest wine route in France: 60 kilometres from Dijon to Santenay, through the Côte de Nuits, the kingdom of Pinot Noir, then the Côte de Beaune, where Chardonnay gives Meursault and Montrachet. The climats of Burgundy, 1,247 plots defined since the Middle Ages, have been UNESCO-listed as a cultural landscape since 2015. Villages follow one another every two or three kilometres with their Romanesque churches, winegrowers' houses and tasting cellars: Gevrey-Chambertin and its nine grands crus, Vougeot and its clos, Vosne-Romanée and its legendary plots, Nuits-Saint-Georges and its négociant houses, Pommard and Volnay south of Beaune. Several estates open their cellars without an appointment, and the Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne, opened in 2023 in Beaune, Chablis and Mâcon, explains in a single visit what geology and the monks made of these slopes. The Voie des Vignes lets you cover it all by bike.
Fontenay Abbey
Founded in 1118 by Bernard of Clairvaux, Fontenay is the oldest Cistercian abbey preserved in its entirety, UNESCO-listed in 1981. In a wooded valley near Montbard, the 12th-century Romanesque complex has come through the centuries almost unaltered: the abbey church with the bareness St Bernard intended, the cloister and its gallery of twin arches, the chapter house, the monks' dormitory with its 15th-century timber roof, the heated scriptorium and the forge, one of the oldest metalworking plants in Europe, where a millrace diverted from the river powered water-driven hammers. Turned into a paper mill after the Revolution, the abbey was bought in 1906 by Édouard Aynard, a Lyon banker, and restored by his descendants, who still own it. The gardens, redesigned by the English landscape architect Peter Holmes, frame the buildings with lawns and pools. Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film Cyrano de Bergerac was partly shot here in 1989.
Vézelay Basilica
On its hill overlooking the Cure and the first slopes of the Morvan, Vézelay is both a village of 400 people ranked among the most beautiful in France and one of the great spiritual sites of the Western world. The Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, built between 1120 and 1150 around the supposed relics of the saint, saw St Bernard preach the Second Crusade in 1146 and Richard the Lionheart meet Philip Augustus for the Third in 1190. The central tympanum of the narthex, Christ sending the apostles out on their mission, is one of the high points of Romanesque sculpture, and the nave with its alternating light and dark stone arches leads to a light-filled Gothic choir. Ruined after the Revolution, it was restored by Viollet-le-Duc, in his first major project, between 1840 and 1859. The site has been UNESCO-listed since 1979, both for the basilica and for the Ways of St James. The Musée Zervos, in Romain Rolland's house, shows Picasso, Léger and Calder just a few steps away.
Château de Guédelon
In 1997, Michel Guyot, owner of the nearby Château de Saint-Fargeau, launched an experimental archaeology gamble in a ferruginous sandstone quarry in the Puisaye: building a fortified castle using the techniques, materials and plans of the 1230s, under the reign of Louis IX. Almost thirty years later, the keep, the chapel tower, the curtain walls and the lord's lodgings are up, the chapel is painted, and around forty salaried builders work stone, wood, iron, rope and tile in front of more than 300,000 visitors a year. The watermill, reconstructed from the excavations of a 12th-century mill, produces flour that the baker bakes on site. The project has served as a field study for building archaeologists and inspired a BBC series. No end date has been set for the work, and that is precisely the point.
How many days, and which itinerary?
A weekend covers Dijon, Beaune and a stretch of the Route des Grands Crus. Four to five days let you add Fontenay, Vézelay or the Mâconnais depending on your direction. A week brings together the Côte, the Auxois, the Puisaye with Guédelon and the south down to Cluny and Solutré.
🗺️ Day-by-day itinerary · 📓 Free printable Burgundy guide (PDF) · 🌍 All of France
weekend (2 days)
Day 1: early TGV to Dijon, the Owl's Trail, the Musée des Beaux-Arts and lunch at the covered market, then a regional train to Beaune in 20 minutes, the Hôtel-Dieu in the late afternoon and dinner in a vaulted cellar. Day 2: e-bike along the Voie des Vignes to Pommard, Volnay and Meursault, a tasting with a winegrower, back via Beaune and an evening TGV.
4-5 days
Day 1: Dijon as above. Day 2: the Route des Grands Crus by car from Gevrey-Chambertin to Nuits-Saint-Georges, a visit to the Château du Clos de Vougeot, night in Beaune. Day 3: the Hospices de Beaune, the Cité des Climats, then the Côte de Beaune down to Santenay. Day 4: the Auxois, the Château de Châteauneuf on its spur, Fontenay Abbey, Semur-en-Auxois and its ramparts. Day 5: Vézelay in the morning, Avallon or the Cure valley in the afternoon, back via the A6.
one week
Days 1 to 3: Dijon, the Route des Grands Crus, Beaune. Day 4: Fontenay and the Auxois. Day 5: Vézelay then Guédelon, night in the Puisaye. Day 6: south through the Morvan and its lakes, Autun and its Saint-Lazare cathedral, night in Cluny. Day 7: Cluny Abbey in the morning, the Rock of Solutré in the late afternoon, a Pouilly-Fuissé tasting, TGV from Mâcon-Loché (1h40 to Paris).
Getting there and getting around
The TGV links Paris-Gare de Lyon to Dijon in 1h35 and to Montbard, the gateway to Fontenay, in 1h; Mâcon-Loché TGV is 1h40 away and serves the south. The Dijon-Beaune (20 minutes) and Dijon-Nuits-Saint-Georges TER regional trains let you visit the Côte without a car, topping up with a bike.
For the Auxois, Vézelay, Guédelon or the Morvan, a car becomes necessary: allow 1h from Dijon to Fontenay, 1h30 to Vézelay, 2h to Guédelon. From Paris, the A6 takes you to Auxerre in 2h and to Beaune in 3h15.
The Voie des Vignes, the Burgundy Canal cycle route and the Tour de Bourgogne à Vélo, more than 800 km of waymarked routes, make the region one of the best equipped for cyclists; rental shops in Beaune and Dijon deliver bikes to your hotel.
Where to stay in Burgundy?
Budget: the campsites in Beaune, in Dijon beside Lac Kir and along the Yonne or the canal take tents and campervans for €20 to 35 a pitch. B&Bs in the villages of the Auxois, the Morvan or the Puisaye charge around €70-90 for a double with breakfast, and Dijon has several well-placed two-star hotels near the station or Place Darcy at €65 to 90.
Comfort: in Beaune, three-star hotels inside the ramparts or around Place Madeleine charge €120 to 180 in season. The villages of the Route des Grands Crus, Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Meursault, offer B&B rooms with winegrowers, often with a tasting, at €100-150. In Dijon, the area around Rue Verrerie and Notre-Dame has most of the charming addresses in half-timbered houses.
Our pick: stay in a village on the Côte de Beaune, Pommard, Volnay or Meursault, so you can walk out into the vines early in the morning while the mist still clings to the vines, then reach Beaune in a quarter of an hour by bike. Old winegrowers' houses converted into guesthouses offer cobbled courtyards, vaulted cellars and gingerbread breakfasts. Vézelay, once the coaches have left, is the other place where spending the night changes everything.
Our places to stay, stop by stop, at three budgets →
What to eat in Burgundy?
Burgundy eats as well as it drinks. At Dijon's covered market, on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings, you will find jambon persillé, prepared snails, Époisses washed in marc and gingerbread from Mulot & Petitjean, founded in 1796.
The Beaune market, on Saturday mornings under the market hall and around the Hôtel-Dieu, is the finest on the Côte for cheeses, Charolais beef and fruit from the Auxois. Bistro dishes, oeufs en meurette, boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, cost €15 to 25, a lunch menu in a serious restaurant €25 to 35, and the great tables of Chagny, Joigny or Saulieu climb to €150 to 300.
In the tasting cellars, a Bourgogne Aligoté or a Hautes-Côtes costs between €10 and 18, a village wine from the Côte between €25 and 50, and the grands crus have no ceiling at all. Kir, Dijon crème de cassis with Aligoté, is the aperitif of choice, and mustard can be tasted from the pump in the shops on Rue de la Liberté.
Entry requirements
Schengen area: an ID card or passport for EU citizens, 90 days visa-free for UK, US, Canadian and Australian passports.
Rules change: check your own government's travel advice before you go.
Frequently asked questions about Burgundy
When is the best time to visit Burgundy?
May-June for green vines and long days, September-October for the harvest and then the red and gold foliage on the Côte. On the third weekend of November, the Hospices auction livens up Beaune but sends prices soaring. Winter is quiet, with cellars open and low prices, but Guédelon and Fontenay cut back their opening hours.
Can you visit Burgundy without a car?
Yes for the Dijon-Beaune axis: TGV from Paris, hourly TER trains between the two towns and e-bikes for the Route des Grands Crus. For Fontenay, get off at Montbard and take a taxi. Vézelay, Guédelon and the Morvan require a car or an organised tour.
How much does a tasting at a Burgundy estate cost?
Allow €10 to 20 for three or four wines at an independent winegrower's, often deducted from any purchase, and €25 to 60 at the big houses in Beaune or Nuits-Saint-Georges with a cellar tour. Grands crus are rarely poured for free; tastings with premiers crus start at around €50.
How many days should you spend in Burgundy?
Two days for Dijon and Beaune, four or five to add the vineyards in detail and Fontenay or Vézelay, a week to head south to Cluny and Solutré or north to Guédelon and the Puisaye.
Do you need to book the Hospices de Beaune and Guédelon?
For the Hospices, booking online saves queuing in summer but is not compulsory. Guédelon can be visited without booking on weekdays; at weekends in May and June and during school holidays, book online to be sure of getting in before the ticket office closes.
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