St Emilion and Duras

St Emilion and Duras

Everyone slept well last night. At least Kris did if the snores and gurgles she was making were any indication. We woke with our jet lag at 0600 and forced Em out of bed.  Plan today is to hit the St Emilion market and then view the town. TomTom is charged up and into la voiture we go. An easy drive through to St E. Our landlord had given us tips on where to park so through the town we go, passing the market, up to the parking at the school. John has a chat with a lovely wee chap who directs us to a park thinking we are part of his walking group. Quelle damage. Non. Nous sommes faire du shopping!!!

The non-existent market!

The roof tops of St Emilion

Back through the town to the totally underwhelming market. Six stalls, and one of them selling beds!! Now this is nothing like what we were expecting. No beautiful local produce, no bohemian arts and crafts, no oysters (perhaps there was an oyster seller), just a barren car park. Never mind. We purchase some expensive foie gras and hike back up to the top of the hill to explore the town (after the compulsory pain au chocolat from the Boulangerie). The town is stacked onto the sides of a steep hill which then opens out onto a plateau covered in rows and rows of vines. We have arrived early with the town being nearly deserted. However, the town steadily fills with other loopies and we walk up and down and around the streets. There are some very fancy wine shops here but none of them appear to be offering tastings. The really nice ones have bottles of Lafitte and Le Tour in the window so we give them a wider berth. A bit out of our league!!

Coffee in St E



Now how to turn this water into wine

Lunch is out on a terrace at a wee restaurant. Beautiful food with Em having the cod, Kris a tomato and mozzarella salad and John a local South-West salad filled with various dried meats, figs, and other yummies.

Suitably refreshed, it’s back to the car and decisions. Back home or go exploring to Duras and its castle. Of course, the castle wins.   An easy drive through the back D roads and soon we are at Duras. There must be a car club outing as there is a line of beautifully restored vehicles outside the castle. No Sunbeam Alpine although there is an old Jag and a MGB.

Les voitures

We tour the tour (hey, a pun) and get an amazing view back over the valley. The castles was fought over between the Brits and the Frogs during the 100 years war and you can certainly see the strategic advantage the position gave. After backtracking our tour we finally find how to get to the top tower with the views being even more impressive.

Duras

Thus, back home for a cold beer and a blog writing under a shady tree in our back/front yard.

The girls scoping a place to buy

And here is the answer to the question on everyone’s lips. “Why no blog posts so far???”

Easy answer. The Wi-Fi is not working at our abode. The owner has put in the same system as John has back in Auckland using the power cables to transmit the internet signal. But it appears that the Wi/Fi unit in our house is not functioning. I have a sneaky suspicion that someone (not me!) has fiddled with security button on one of the units which then stops all others from getting signal. The lovely owner, Nick, has says he will sort it out but in the meantime, no internet access and no blog posts.

Duras town

Into Gensac for dinner. We park in the lovely main square and sort out the two possible restaurants. Unfortunately our first choice is booked out even though there was no-one there when we turned up. Quelle damage. So off to the second choice and after dining there we can see why it was easier to get a table there. Solid food with all of us having duck, but nothing flash about the flavours or style.

Home to view Em’s photos of her trip across Europe. It seems she has developed her father’s eye for a photo with some lovely framing, textures and lighting in her photos. Well done Em!!

Then to bed, sound sleep and to see what we can get up to tomorrow.