In a balloon over Burgundy

I said I’d never go up in a hot air balloon again. But that was a terrified me forty-five years ago. And here I was, relaxed and enjoying the views of the French Côte d’Or with my family and a handful of French people at 1,500 meters, hovering over vineyards, pastures and fields.

In 1979 I was contacted by Hans Büker, a thirty-nine-year-old German balloonist who was hoping for some free publicity in the International Herald Tribune, for which I was the Swiss correspondent. Büker was trying to launch a ballooning festival in Château d’Oex in the Bernese Oberland, known for its cheese and rolling pastures pierced by imposing alps.

“I hate heights, I’m a white-knuckle flyer and get dizzy going up a ladder,” I told Hans, who grew up in Dortmund — its significant supply of natural gas had piqued his interest in hot-air ballooning.

“You’d be passing up a good story and seeing the Alps as few have or ever will,” Hans insisted. A week later, he was shouting at me to hop into a small straw basket, filled with propane gas canisters, tethered by ropes to a giant black balloon. What was I thinking? I had a husband and three children needing me back in Lausanne.

Suddenly we were off, gripping the waist-high rim of the basket with knuckles the color of snow. “Better to have one hand on the rim and the other on this line,” said Eric, the charming American co-pilot Hans had hired for the summer to “teach him the ropes” of hot-air ballooning. I was terrified I’d faint and was wondering which of these (I hoped) gallant guys would catch me if I did. Hans was smoking cigarette after cigarette to tell the direction of the wind while we headed for the Alps. “Isn’t propane gas flammable?” I asked Eric. I was thinking of the Hindenburg.

Eric reminded me that the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen and that those days had long since passed. Hans got his camera out and leaned over the basket to take a selfie of us three. I tried to smile, as Eric was doing; it was a feeble effort at best.

I hadn’t yet done my research about the French Montgolfier brothers discovering in 1783 that hot air from a fire they’d lit to roast patates and saucissons caused the paper wrapping their picnic to rise above the flames. Nor had I read that King Louis XVI then invited them to Versailles to fly a balloon filled with hydrogen, carrying a lamb, duck and rooster, and that the balloon landed safely. And I didn’t know that it wasn’t until NASA in the 1960s developed a balloon from parachute cloth that hot-air ballooning took off as a relatively safe adventure.

Since moving to Burgundy in 2022, I’ve often noticed hot-air balloons floating over Meursault’s vineyards during my early morning walks. In the late afternoon, when I picked up my grandchildren at school in the neighboring village of Volnay, we often saw hot-air balloons above us and the neighboring village of Pommard. “Would you like to go up in a balloon one day?” I asked them. “Oui,” came the enthusiastic answer. “May we really?”

With the help of Meursault’s local tourist office, I got in touch with one of the three companies that operates hot-air balloons over La Côte, FRANCE Montgolfières.

David La Beaume, of FRANCE Montgolfières, was interested that I’d flown with Hans Büker back in 1979, and I wanted my family to experience flying over our adopted land. “Oh, my pilot, Antonio, trained with Hans. Best time would be end of May when the winds will be more predictable,” David told me. We picked a date and David asked how many we’d be, our ages and our weights. “We have a basket that fits thirteen,” David told me after I recounted my experience in the small basket. “And you’ll be comfortable and quite safe.” I really hadn’t made up my mind if I’d accompany my family. In the end I did, after telling my daughter, half-kidding, “Wouldn’t that be a great way for me to end my charmed life?” She was not amused.

Ballooning over Burgundy, as well as throughout France, has become a big tour- ist draw, even though it is a pricey adventure (three adults and two children paid €1,000), and one is at the mercy of the wind, of course. We were hoping to fly over our homes in Meursault, but instead found ourselves cruising south over Pommard’s cow pastures, and fields of yellow mustard plants and wheat.

When we had reached 5,000 feet, pilot Antoine asked us how we all felt. Everyone agreed we were “peaceful” and felt safe. I appreciated the soft landing in a cow pasture — our landing forty-five years ago was anything but soft. Hans had to quickly let out significant air from the black balloon to keep us from going to Italy over the Alps, already becoming dark in the dusk, using the tops of pines in a forest above Château d’Oex to slow down our rapid descent.

My close friend, Huck Scarry, had a similar adventure with Hans in 1980 and wrote a delightful, beautifully illustrated book: Voyage en Ballon; in English it’s Balloon Trip: A Sketchbook. Just like his father, Richard Scarry, Huck’s many books tell stories in exquisite and funny detail. I recommend Huck’s delightful book to anyone, young or old, wishing to go hot air-ballooning. Both editions can be found on out-of-print websites.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s February 2025 World edition.