The Grape Escape
On a cooler morning, the air freshened by spots of rain (that didn't amount to much but forced us to take breakfast indoors) we headed off on the next stage of our journey.
Rather than take the quickest route, we headed gradually west on quiet country lanes through more beautiful Dordogne countryside, spotting buzzards perched on hay bales and a solitary roe deer in a field. South of Bergerac the countryside started to change and we got our first sight of grapevines. Within two hours of stress free driving we arrived at St. Emilion. It was by far the busiest place we had visited so far but striking lucky we dived into a parking space in a road on the edge of the village.
Its a decent sized place but very walkable with attractive with cobbled streets and old buildings.
It has UNESCO World Heritage status. Throughout the village wine producers sell their wares, whilst just outside the village various chateau are reachable on foot. Although wine is by far the dominant feature of St. Emilion's retail offer, there are also a fair number of high end (and high priced) food sellers with tempting treats.
It was an overcast sort of day, dry but still humid, with hazy rather than direct sun, so we found a shady spot and had a picnic lunch (made by Mrs B.) beneath a tree, outside the entrance to the cave of Chateau La Rose Brisson which we had just visited. It was lovely and cool underground with a wonderful aroma of oak barrel and grape - including the unbottled 2018 vintage.
A bottle of their wine made it into my bag by the end of our visit - for consumption at a later date.
After lunch we explored further, walking from one end of the village to the other, before climbing back up the steep lanes, visiting the imposing church and making another wine purchase before deciding to check into our hotel a few miles outside the village.
We ate that evening at the hotel rather than drive again, enjoyed a carafe of wine, but abandoned plans to walk again after dinner as a few heavy spots of rain appeared, chasing us indoors and when it cleared after a few minutes we found that the track shown on the map wasn't so obvious in reality.
St Emilion proved to be a worthwhile stop on our journey towards the Spanish border. Before crossing though we had one more night booked, in the Pays de Basque region of France, and the promise of sun, sea and sand.
Rather than take the quickest route, we headed gradually west on quiet country lanes through more beautiful Dordogne countryside, spotting buzzards perched on hay bales and a solitary roe deer in a field. South of Bergerac the countryside started to change and we got our first sight of grapevines. Within two hours of stress free driving we arrived at St. Emilion. It was by far the busiest place we had visited so far but striking lucky we dived into a parking space in a road on the edge of the village.
Its a decent sized place but very walkable with attractive with cobbled streets and old buildings.
 |
| A view over the rooftops of St. Emilion |
 |
| Outside one of the many wine sellers.... |
It was an overcast sort of day, dry but still humid, with hazy rather than direct sun, so we found a shady spot and had a picnic lunch (made by Mrs B.) beneath a tree, outside the entrance to the cave of Chateau La Rose Brisson which we had just visited. It was lovely and cool underground with a wonderful aroma of oak barrel and grape - including the unbottled 2018 vintage.
A bottle of their wine made it into my bag by the end of our visit - for consumption at a later date.
After lunch we explored further, walking from one end of the village to the other, before climbing back up the steep lanes, visiting the imposing church and making another wine purchase before deciding to check into our hotel a few miles outside the village.
We ate that evening at the hotel rather than drive again, enjoyed a carafe of wine, but abandoned plans to walk again after dinner as a few heavy spots of rain appeared, chasing us indoors and when it cleared after a few minutes we found that the track shown on the map wasn't so obvious in reality.
St Emilion proved to be a worthwhile stop on our journey towards the Spanish border. Before crossing though we had one more night booked, in the Pays de Basque region of France, and the promise of sun, sea and sand.
Comments
Post a Comment