The remainder of the trip ,which was about six hours of driving, was mostly easy with the motorways having only minor truck traffic, wonderful. Yes there are tolls on the motorways, but all of the roads we experienced were in beautiful condition, maybe some of the toll money actually goes towars road upkeep.
We stopped for lunch at a motorway facility which was very modern.
This structure, plus further extensions were in the restaurant area, but we did not discover its purpose; maybe some kind gallery maybe.
Arriving in the town of St Emilion!
Our rental was this 13th century refurbished windmill or moulin. It was within walking distance of the town and, not surprisingly, on a small hill.
The view from our "front door" with the town in the distance. St Emilion is in the middle of the grape growing Bordeaux region and there are wineries everywhere.
Heavily planted in grapes.
These vines were next to the moulin and looked to be pretty old.
The town itself has quite steep streets which are mostly cobbled with much of the center pedestrian only, with some minor exceptions which we could never understand.
Just to give a little idea of the streets,
A pretty significant church built on a high part of town.
This was a fun "street", very steep and cobbled, I can imagine it it would be pretty treacherous in wet weather. It had restaurants and shops along it's length.
A view over the rooftops to the castle.
It gets to be a bit tiring going up and down the hills, so we took a leaf out of the local's book and took a break on some handy parts of the stone buildings.
Did I mention it's wine country!
We met Paddy O'Flynn of "The Wine Buff" who was a delight and gave us a great "tour" of the local wines. Paddy has lived in the area since 1988, speaks fluent French and also has a string of wine stores in Ireland. We spent several hours tasting and shooting the breeze and we did end up buying a few bottles. It is one of the few stores that offer tasting, which we found surprising.
Since we were close to Bordeaux we decided to take the train and spend half a day exploring.
The train stop in St Emilion, in fact, several kilometers out of town. No place to buy a ticket, you had to buy it from the Conductor on the train.
I was a bit disappointed with Bordeaux, just a big gritty city with some pedestrian shopping streets, mostly closed on our Sunday visit.
A fine old church which had a separate bell tower. Built next to the church because it was feared that the vibrations from the bells would damage the church structure if it was an integral part of the church itself! I thought it significant that the bell tower was still standing,
I thought this restaurant sign was funny. We should have eaten here, the sushi we had in the city center was certainly the worst we had ever eaten.
Back to St Emilion where you can also buy a vine as well as you favourite vintage from the same shop.
I need to say what an experience it was staying in the moulin. There are four levels, basement is the bathroom, the entrance floor is the kitchen, next one up is the sitting room, with bedroom on the top floor. Access to all the floors is via a staircase that spirals around the inside walls.
The inside diameter of the structure was about 10ft, so you can imagine it was a bit of a tight squeeze.
The walls were about two feet thick and it was quite surprising that they had managed to put all of the plumbing and electrical wiring inside the stonework, quite a renovation feat.
We stayed in St Emilion for three nights and then drove to our next location across the south of France.
Stay tuned for St Remy des Provence.
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