Wine Country

Bonjour!

So, France has got away from us a bit, and we're now in catch-up mode, so bear with us.

First up was Bordeaux, in south-western France. Apart from knowing they make a lot of wine, I didn't know too much about this city or region. It has a beautiful, UNESCO World Heritage classified old town which dates back to Bordeaux's prosperous history as a port town. It was nice to wander and take in the old buildings and alleys.

A lovely but run-down arcade in town

Port Cailhau

There were some sights of note, including Port Cailhau which was a gate that formed part of the city walls in medieval times.

Also Place des Quinconces - the largest square in Europe. I was quite excited to see this, but unfortunately on a hot June day it was more like a desert wasteland than a lovely square, a vast space with trees bordering it but nothing in the middle except small white stones.

But there was another square that made up for it: Place de la Bourse, and the water mirror which runs alongside the river reflecting the buildings. We visited twice, once in the middle of day where hot Bordelais were splashing about in a few inches of water, then again in the evening to take some photos with the tripod like the camera geeks we are fast turning into!

Is this not an awesome photo? I took this (Simon helped....)

After our day in Bordeaux we headed to St-Emilion, one of the primary wine-growing regions around Bordeaux. It's a ridiculously pretty town and also was our second UNESCO World Heritage site in as many days, to Simon's delight.

Rooftops of St-Emilion

Once we'd had our fill of the roof-top views and picturesque streets we took a wine tour at Chateau Villemaurine - one of about 200 chateau in St-Emilion to be classed as "Grand Cru". That means it's very good, but not the best of the region - only about 50 chateau have that distinction.

Seeing the vineyards was interesting, but the best bit was undoubtedly the opportunity to see the underground lairs where they leave the wine to mature - very cool.

Wine, lotsa wine

We were able to sample a couple of Villemaurine's reds - a 2007 vintage and also a 2012 one. The 2012 one still tasted so full of tannin it was like drinking liquid wood, but the 2007 was pretty smooth.

After this we had a half-hearted look at the glut of wine shops in town, but as neither of us are big red wine drinkers it was a bit wasted on us. What wasn't wasted was cake - we sampled a delicious version of the local speciality, caneles. It's a rum and vanilla cake and the inside is like a baked custard-cake - delicious!

Caneles - not cannoli!