Goodbye St. Emilion

Today we traveled from St. Emilion to the Dordogne area. We are staying in the true French countryside. Our rental is part of a group of cottages owned by a British family. We are staying in the “farm house,” and it is great! Like our last stop, there is plenty of space inside and tons of room for James to run around. The backyard has a ping pong table, swing set, little wooden houses, and a pool. I think the water is going to be way too cold for me to swim in, so I’m praying that James doesn’t want to go in! There is also a toy cottage that is stocked with toys, books, DVDs etc. The British family lives on the property.

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Our plan was to be packed up and ready to go for 9 am. We had a tasting in Sauternes about 40 minutes from St. Emilion. I was so proud of our group. We were up and ready to go! The place was spotless, and all we had to do was wait on the lady to come check us out. That is where the problems started. Justin told the lady that we wanted to check out at 9 or 9:15. She showed up at 10. We were literally sitting in the car waiting. We had to cancel our first tasting and Justin was pretty much livid. He was pacing the streets waiting for the woman to show up. So, this is the problem with renting apartments. It’s alot easier to walk into a hotel lobby and check out than have to rely on communicating with a woman that doesn’t speak great English. We probably would have just left, except for the fact that they took a 350 euro deposit in cash that we really wanted to get back. I think that the deposit was almost more than the cost of staying the 3 nights. So, when the lady finally showed up, she didn’t seem to even realize that she was late. We basically grabbed the cash, got in the car and peeled out with our giant van.

So, bad start to the day. We canceled that first tasting and headed to the second one at Chateau Guiraud. It was another tasting in Sauternes. Sauternes is known for their sweet wines. James, of course, fell asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived. Impeccable timing as usual. I loaded him up into the baby carrier, and he actually did pretty well. He woke up and was in a good mood. Unfortunately, he decided to run around during most of the tour, and I didn’t get to hear all the info. Sweet wines are made with grapes that have been hung on the vine for too long and stated to develop “noble rot.” The juice of the grapes concentrates and gets very sweet.

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After that, we had lunch at a restaurant close by at Le Saprian. Again, our hope was to eat outside on the patio overlooking the vineyard, it the weather was not in our favor. James did great! He watched Toy Story and ate some pomme frites!

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After lunch we were on our way to the country home where we will stay for 4 nights. The drive was about 2 hours. James did well, but we were happy when we finally got here.

We had a nice dinner on the patio of meat, cheese, pâté, rillette, and foie gras….and maybe a few bottles of wine.

Tomorrow, we are going to do some exploring in nearby towns. There are lots of old castles in this area that will be fun to see!

Alyce

One thought on “Goodbye St. Emilion

  1. I LOVE seeing all the pictures!! Especially the ones of James!! Missing him……..and y’all……..Everything looks beautiful!! Love the playhouse and slide!!! I can’t wait to get home and check your site!!
    Have lots more fun!!! Tell Sam to take some pics of the family…Makes for beautiful Christmas cards!!
    XXOO

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