SAINT EMILION

3 things I liked today

• Visiting another UNESCO world heritage site
• A lovely lunch
• A picnic in our room

We arose early, farewelled the beautiful view of the river and left Bayonne for Bordeaux. We had booked ahead and decided to drive straight to the hotel, settle in then go for a drive.  When we arrived we discovered an array of ‘deux chevaux’ cars in the carpark.  We were excited as the first in the rank (the dusky yellow fawny one) was exactly like our first car when we lived in Algeria.

Once we were organised we drove off to see Saint-Émilion, the famous Bordeaux wine area.  “Viticulture was introduced to this fertile region of Aquitaine by the Romans, and intensified in the Middle Ages. The Saint-Émilion area benefited from its location on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and many churches, monasteries and hospices were built there from the 11th century onwards. It was granted the special status of a ‘jurisdiction’ during the period of English rule in the 12th century. It is an exceptional landscape devoted entirely to wine-growing, with many fine historic monuments in its towns and villages.” Source : UNESCO World Heritage list

I was surprised how pretty Saint-Émilion village was.  There were not too many tourists and it was a perfect day, so we decided to sit down and enjoy lunch and sample a bottle of the local produce.

We regaled ourselves with a ‘maigret de canard’ (duck breast) and an ‘entrecote’ (beef steak) accompanied by a lovely red wine.  We only drank half the bottle, so I did the unforgivable and corked the bottle and slipped it into my camera backpack, and went for a walk.

Cloister of collegiate church of Saint Emilion
World Heritage by UNESCO Libourne district Gironde department Aquitania region France

From there we toured around the local villages, and of course the ‘chateaux’ in area before heading back to Bordeaux.

That evening we were not too hungry, so we decided to have a picnic in our room!  Den bought a baguette and some ‘fois gras’ (the gorgeous girl in the hotel chilled the ‘fois gras’ in the fridge for an hour, before we sat down and munched away enjoying the rest of our fabulous red wine!

June 7, 2016June 9, 2016 by Family Holidays Categories: Uncategorized 1 Comment