6 September - St Emilion

On the Saturday we decided we really ought to move south so headed off towards the only campsite near St Emilion. No wrong turns, no being followed by police and good navigation from Chris got us there in good time. It has to be said the scenery as we got within around 30k or so of the site was just brilliant, with vineyard after vineyard and cracking chateaux (mostly metaphorically, some literally) everywhere and undulating land meant for some great vistas.

The site is somewhat bigger than the last, though we had been a little spoilt by the last place. We got in, pitched the Uno tent quickly and headed off to Libourne to one of the biggest supermarkets we've ever seen. Supplies bought we then lurked suspiciously outside the nearby McDonalds to pick up email and went back to the site for a well earned lie by the pool. Andy thought he'd practice for Italy by making a Bolognese though of course a nice St Emilion to go with it balanced things nicely.

Morning broke and both Andy and Chris went out for a run before breakfast, Andy going just a little further into St Emilion itself and came back with glowing reports of the small town. After breakfast we both went up to St Emilion to try and find the alleged Sunday morning market and for a general look around. We found the market but it was, how best to say, limited in choice. We decided to give it a miss and wandered around St Emilion itself. It has small, medieval winding streets, old ramparts, quirky wee shops and courtyards, wine for sale everywhere and loads of choice for food. We meandered around for a good while, deciding to come back and do some serious tasting etc. on Monday. Back to the campsite to bob about on a canoe on the lake for a while before more pool time. Boy was it hot.

So Monday broke and so did the weather to begin with. Spots of rain were falling as we both went for pre-breakfast runs, then some very short bursts of big rain drops accompanied by some rumbles of thunder, before getting ready for the two mile walk back up to the town (and finding the power had gone off in the surrounding area, almost reminding of us of home). By the time we got up there and walked around for a while it was time for lunch (with a miniscule glass of wine) before a wander around the Maison du Vin and a trip past tourist information where we saw we could do a beginners wine tasting course (starting in about 25 mins) so we thought "why not?" and went and bought ice cream as good preparation. The course was really interesting and good fun, helped by being run by an amusing Frenchman with a dry and self-effacing sense of humour, although it has probably done more to convince both of us that the only thing we really knew about wine at all was that we liked some of it. Now armed with our new-found knowledge we resolved to keep practicing the tasting, though we have taken tonight off wine to build up to it!

The weather had picked up enough through the day, though is meant to deteriorate a little over the next two days, but we like the area so much we'll stick around for another three nights at least. Tomorrow we will use some new found information about local cycle routes that take in some pretty cool vineyards for Andy to get a long run in, though Chris will be using Andy's bike due to ongoing puncture problems (long story) with her bike. We may search out a nice Grand Cru Classe while we're at it too...