Today we had a wonderful guided tour of Bordeaux and St Emillion. We had booked the tour expecting it to be on an open top bus around Bordeaux and then transferring to a regular coach for the 40 minute trip to Saint Emillion.
To our suprise, we were met by a delightful Frenchwoman named Delpine who was here to take only the 6 of us on both legs in a Mercedes van. Score! We were able to stop and take pictures when we wanted to, ask questions easily and didn't have to stick to a schedule designed to cater for a large group of people. It was a wonderful day.
As I mentioned last night, old Bordeaux is a gorgeous city. Over the past 2 years the city has undertaken a cleaning programe that has returned the limestone buildings to their original colour. Limestone starts off a lovely pale beige, but darkens to almost black as it ages. I think that this is what really makes it look fresh and beautiful when compared to other cities we have visited, we just didn't connect what the difference was. I have posted a picture that shows a cleaned and uncleaned building side by side so that you can see the difference.
Saint Emillion is a beautiful village set amongst vineyards to the east of Bordeaux which are known mainly for Merlot. After wandering around the village and lunching under umbrellas in the plaza, we were off to one of the vineyards for a personal tour - again a whole different experience than if we had been on a bus. The vineyard was Fouroque and they are an organic, bio-dynamic vineyard, although talking to Caroline (another lovely Frenchwoman who is the public face of the vineyard) we realised that it is a lot easier to be certified organic in France than in NZ. For example, there is no regulation around how far their grapes need to be from an inorganic vineyard, just whatever the certifier thinks is reasonable. It may just be a couple of metres or a line of trees.
We bought a couple of bottles after the tasting (of course) and headed back into Bordeaux where C&A were dropped off at the hotel for a kip and we carried on with T&T into the centre of Bordeaux to check out a few shops. There is one main shopping street, but it is a bit odd because the Glassons type stores are mixed in with the designer labels and top end gear. That means that if you don't know the label, you have to go in to figure out whether it is posh or slosh. Oh dear, I guess we'll just have to visit all of the shoe shops then, sigh...
I did buy a couple of wee sun tops and a lightweight jersey, but no shoes. Actually the most impressive shop was an amazing chocolatier and I have attached a photo of some of their wares - which still don't even come close to describe being in the shop wallowing in a full on visual and aromatic assault. And yes, just a wee sample seemed to be absolutely required - it would have been rude not to.
We are about to pop down the road for a quick bite to eat. Thankfully we were at a restaurant with a great range of salads for lunch, I am hoping that we might manage to find some for dinner as well. I'll let you know xx
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