St. Emilion

 One of the things we have been most looking forward to on this trip is our day trip to the medieval hilltop town of St. Emilion.  A monk from Brittany up on the north/west coast of France,  fled his hometown in the 8th century to seek refuge in one of the natural caves in this town (called Ascum Bas at the time).  His name was St Emilion and he chose to live the life of a hermit, living in an underground cave, and accomplishing a quite a few miracles which rapidly made him famous in the region.  He quickly gained many disciples and upon his death, the town was renamed after him...St. Emilion.  From the 9th to the 19th century, vineyards were planted in this perfect terrior, and 200km of underground galleries were excavated under the hill that the town sits on.  In 1999, for the very first time, the vineyards here were declared a Wold Heritage Site by UNESCO as a Cultural Landscape.  Due to both the complex geology (sand, clay, limestone) and a unique microclimate, this area is perfect for winemaking which we too found out!  Merlot, Cab Franc, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon are the grapes grown in this area.  St. Emilion wines are world famous today, thanks to a wine brotherhood called the Judade which was created in 1199 by King John of England.  They have been in charge since then, of promoting St. Emilion wines around the world...and we were bound and determined to investigate further!

We got a later start than we planned (it's proving to be very hard to corral 6 people!!).  We took the tram to the train station (we have been on this tram line so many times we are starting to feel like locals!). Once at the train station we had to purchase our tickets...there are only kiosks to purchase tickets and all names, ages, and birthdates for each passenger...its quite a laborious process for our group, and due to our late start we missed the early train I was hoping to take.  We booked our tickets on the next train, (one hour later).It was a quick ride and just as we arrived at the train station in St. Emilion it started sprinkling.  Sadly, since no rain was in the forecast, I left my umbrella at home because I didn't want to carry it around!). 

Obviously St. Emilion is at the top of a hill...so off we went!  The walk could not have been more lovely.  the little road was lined on both sides with acres and of vineyards...many of the grapes had been picked, but some of the vines were just deliciously heavy with grapes! Look at these beautiful grapes hanging on the vines!

As you can see by the grey clouds, it began raining on us (and once again, who do you think made the decision NOT to bring her umbrella?!?). And this is what I looked like as we ducked into the first restaurant we found, about half way up the hill!  No wonder all the other restaurant patrons looked at us like we were crazy!  A good lunch (omelets for some, coq au vin for others), surrounded by French people (no other Americans in the restaurant), and we continued up to the top of the hill).

I wish the photos could show how steep the cobblestone road/path up the hill was.  We were laughing almost all the way up the hill at how crazy steep it was.  I don't understand how the camera lens kind flattens things out.

I love this photo of "the bros"! Being an only child myself, I love seeing the brothers together - and when Ron, Gary, and John are together, it makes me hope that someday Bryan, Jayson, and Matthew will be able to travel together and create fun memories like we are. (Plus, I love that Gary and John carry "man-sacks" when they travel...so cosmopolitan!)

Due to our later-than-planned start, we missed the tour down into St. Emilion's hermit cave and chapel under ground (probably for the better, since both Gary and Ron would not have been able to handle the "claustrophobic" aspect!)  We wandered around, admiring the GORGEOUS vistas.  Everywhere we looked was a photo-perfect sight.  There were tons of wine shops...charming and lovely - not a tacky tourist souvenir shop in sight!  We overheard a wedding planner talking about a future event she was looking at planning here - I can't imaging a more lovely spot for a destination wedding!

This photo below shows where the wedding planner was envisioning the wedding she was working on.

One of the most charming interactions we had was when we stopped into a macaron shop in town.  Babette and I wanted to check out the competition!  The original macarons were made by nuns in this town to raise money on which to live their simple life.  The original macarons were just 1 piece (not 2 sandwiched together with filling)...just simple, delicious little almond cookies.  We bought a box of those and they were delicious...don't tell anyone, but I preferred them to the macarons I make!!

 Babette and I showed the sweet baker/shopkeeper our instagram pages that show our macarons and he was duly impressed, telling us they were beautiful, and gave us his stamp of approval.  He especially loved the photo of Babette's little cart that John built for her to use when she sells macarons at public events.  He even took a photo of the cart so he could build one like it for himself! 

We knew we wanted to purchase some wine here, and we found a charming little wine shop (one of about 100 in town it seemed!).  The most charming young man helped us.  If you ever watched Hogan's Heros growing up, this guy had the exact personality of Frenchie on that show!  He was so good at pouring a tasting of 2 wines for us, asking our preference, then using that info to determine which wines to pour next...on and on until we had 6 yummy wines lined up in front of us, most of them were wines that are not exported to the US.  We ended up buying 3 bottles (remember, we were traveling by train and still had to walk down to the train station).

Although this was not the way I had envisioned our day in this lovely, historic town, we got a nice overview.  It is stunningly beautiful and definitely worth a little detour here if you are ever in the area! I really wanted to go in the Hermit's cave, but it was not meant to be this time.

  

After wandering around for a little bit, we headed back down the hill (much easier on the descent!!), took the train back to Bordeaux and had dinner next to the Eleanor of Aquitaine Gate (which proved to be a very popular evening photo spot! (The landmarks here really are so beautiful when they are all lit up in the evening, and it stays light so late here...our night time walks have been so lovely.). 

The tram system here in Bordeaux is amazing.  We "live" just a 3 minute walk off the D-line tram which seems to be the most central of tram lines and has served us very well. There are not many restaurants in our immediate neighborhood, but with our trusty tram tickets hand, we can get anywhere we want in just a few minutes.  Our home here has been great...3 bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms (great for a bunch of old people traveling together).  We have a nice big dining table with comfy chairs that we gather around to drink coffee, talk, hang out, plan our days, and sometimes eat! And as we found last time we travelled to France with John and Babette...spiral staircases are all the rage. 😜