Day 3: Saint Emilion, France

Intro
Days 1 & 2

The Bordeaux region was one stop on this road trip where Brian and I enjoyed a full day of exploring, and I'm so glad we did! I could spend several days cruisin' around that area. I haven't ever been to Napa, but I assume it's the same kind of fun. We were very excited about the B&B we were staying in, and we wanted to drive around some of the chateaus and taste some local wines.

We woke up kind of early that morning because Jean Josef and Veronica had said they would meet us for breakfast at 8:00 or 8:30. They ended up not coming to breakfast until 9:30 or so, which I found really funny! We woke up earlier than the old folk :) It was nice, though, because we got our first pick of the pastries at breakfast. This turned out to be a major win because there were only THREE chocolate filled croissants, which ended up being one of the food highlights of the trip for me. So Brian and I each had our own chocolate croissant! Don't judge. They were ridiculous yum.

The breakfast table was HUGE. It was made from the bottom of an old wine barrel. Awesome.

As we drank our perfectly made French coffee, we read Allison's husbands travel journal that he made about his Enduro India motorcycle trip. He was a great writer, so it was a really entertaining and interesting read. When we were about done reading, Veronica and Jean Josef joined us for breakfast, but it was MUCH more difficult to communicate without translator Ben!

After we said our good-byes to the cute old French couple, Brian and I got ready for our day of exploring French wine country! Allison recommended we go to St. Emilion for the day. It was the perfect distance and sounded just like what we were looking for, so we geared up and were off!

On our way out the door, I was surprised to meet Allison's great dane.
He was the biggest dog I've ever seen. Don't I look like a midget in this picture??

The drive to St. Emilion was perfect (minus the clouds...but at least it didn't rain!). I know the Bordeaux region is huge in the wine business, but I never could have imagined THAT many vineyards! They went on forever.

Coming up on St. Emilion, the little old city seemed fake it was so beautiful.

Bri found a great place to park the bike (he seriously has this way of finding the best little nooks and hideouts for the motorcycle), and we got out of our motorcycle gear and started our day of exploring. St. Emilion is located on top of a hill with vineyards going as far as you can see all around it, so it's quite a picturesque town! I loved all of Brian's photos, so please forgive me for not being able to narrow them down :)


At the very beginning of our walk, we smelled the sweetest smell of freshly baked macaroons. Holy moly. We hadn't had lunch yet, though, so we had to skip over the bakery (for now) to find more substantial food.

We had parked at the top of the hill, so we wandered around up there for a bit and found lots of views like this.

And we slowly made our way down to the plaza you can see below us in this picture for lunch with a great view.


This lunch was, however, voted our biggest rip off of the trip. The food was fine but just cost way more than it should have. But that didn't stop me from enjoying this crepe! And the sun even came out a little during our lunch!

Man, the streets of this little town were too adorable.

And stunning.

We love seeing architecture that is built into the sides of hills. The numerous tiers are pretty and make for a great after-lunch workout.

And I loved the multi-colored roofs!

Inside St. Emilion's church, which had windows that overlooked vineyards

We went into this chateau to see where the wine-making action happened

The caves, with wine aging in barrels. These caves were so cold! Nature's refrigerator.

A guy working at this chateau gave us a tour of the place and had all kinds of great information about wine. And Brian asked some really great questions, too, like about the region (both reds and whites are made in Bordeaux, which I never see whites from there), what percentage of grapes are used (depends on the wine quality), and what happens to the barrels after one batch of wine is made (they're reused a few times!). We felt kind of bad leaving without buying anything, but the cheapest bottle they had was more than $20, and Allison had told us not to spend much on wine in St. Emilion because you could get it at the grocery store for a fraction of the cost.

Time for more walking!

I purposefully led us back to the macaroon store so that we could get some for later. I've never had such light, fluffy, tasty macaroons!






A dark cloud appeared to be rolling in, so we decided to head back toward the B&B. Despite the chance of rain, we wanted to stop at one of the smaller chateaus off the side of the road on the way home, so we followed signs to one that was tucked nicely into some secluded hills. At first it appeared to be closed and deserted - darn! But as we were doing a U-turn, we saw an old man in a bright blue farming onesie appear in the field. Brian made a hand motion like he was drinking wine, the old guy made the money hand gesture (rubbing his thumb across the tips of his fingers), we all nodded, and we were waved over to a huge barn. It was really comical.

The barn was so basic. It had cartons of wine on the floor, and the prices were listed on a little piece of paper on a post (CHEAP prices - 2 euro for a bottle). While we were "shopping", this little old lady came into the barn, too. We couldn't figure out if she was his wife or if she was married to his son? But she was sooo animated and just chatted our heads off, mostly in French. She had on this funny little hat, and she was really short. We couldn't understand what she was saying most of the time, but it was really entertaining! We ended up buying two bottles, and then the old couple waved us toward another barn.


We walked into the vat room, where all of their wine is made and bottled. They were so proud of their work and kept emphasizing in broken English that making wine isn't an easy lifestyle. But they were very excited to give us a taste from the vat. Since Bri was driving, he only had a small sip, but I enjoyed a nice glass of fresh-from-the-vat-French-country-wine!


They were also really excited about their new label machine that they had purchased. It was pretty cool! And very shiny.


We were excited to get back to the B&B and test our loot, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road! Unfortunately the rain cloud had been heading our way that entire time, so we rode through a little rain on our way home.


When we got back to the house, we sat by the big window and listened to the rain and the fire in the fireplace while we played chess and checkers with some great red wine. I had never played chess before, so Brian was a great teacher. It was a very relaxing evening!


Marmaduke (I can't remember the dog's real name) decided to join us inside. This gives you a better picture of how huge this dog is. He stands taller next to B than I do!


For dinner, we had salmon, salad, cheese and what looked and tasted like banana flambe for dessert. Yum! What a great way to wrap up our day in Bordeaux!