France Wine Trail: Day 4 - 30th May 2008
We hired a car from Europcar and drove our group of 4 friends to St Emilion for the 2pm Medieval City Tour (arrive at the Tourist Office 15 minutes early to ensure a spot on the tour).
We thought we would have a quick lunch at the restaurant next to the Tourist Office. Unfortunately our waiter promised we would receive our lunch before 2pm so we would have time to eat before the tour. Naturally our food arrived on the dot of 2pm, just as our tour group walked past our table. We slurped what we could and wrapped the rest in napkins as we dashed down the road to catch up with the group. Neighbouring French customers watched us in horror! Lunch is an extravagantly long afffair, not the eat and dash type scenario we're custom to at home.
We managed to find the group and headed underground into the caves where Saint Emilion lived as a hermit, as well as a type of Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich, and giving to the poor.
The medieval city was amazing and beautiful. The underground caverns were spectacular!
We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around the Medieval Village taking photos of the architecture, shopping and taking photos.
We popped into Planet Bordeaux on our way home but it closed at 7pm, so although we didn't have time for a tasting, we did have time to buy a couple bottles from their extremely large cellar. Thought we thought we try a Cremante (sparkling wine outside of Champayne). It was pretty average.
Back to Bordeaux we headed out to one of the plazas for dinner. Although the French spend a long time eating dinner, they start quite early, so it was difficult to find a place to serve us food late at night (to be fair, we spent so long lounging with our bottles of Chateau de Bel we didn't head out to eat until close to midnight).
We hired a car from Europcar and drove our group of 4 friends to St Emilion for the 2pm Medieval City Tour (arrive at the Tourist Office 15 minutes early to ensure a spot on the tour).
We thought we would have a quick lunch at the restaurant next to the Tourist Office. Unfortunately our waiter promised we would receive our lunch before 2pm so we would have time to eat before the tour. Naturally our food arrived on the dot of 2pm, just as our tour group walked past our table. We slurped what we could and wrapped the rest in napkins as we dashed down the road to catch up with the group. Neighbouring French customers watched us in horror! Lunch is an extravagantly long afffair, not the eat and dash type scenario we're custom to at home.
We managed to find the group and headed underground into the caves where Saint Emilion lived as a hermit, as well as a type of Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich, and giving to the poor.The medieval city was amazing and beautiful. The underground caverns were spectacular!
We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around the Medieval Village taking photos of the architecture, shopping and taking photos.
We popped into Planet Bordeaux on our way home but it closed at 7pm, so although we didn't have time for a tasting, we did have time to buy a couple bottles from their extremely large cellar. Thought we thought we try a Cremante (sparkling wine outside of Champayne). It was pretty average.
Back to Bordeaux we headed out to one of the plazas for dinner. Although the French spend a long time eating dinner, they start quite early, so it was difficult to find a place to serve us food late at night (to be fair, we spent so long lounging with our bottles of Chateau de Bel we didn't head out to eat until close to midnight).