3rd August 2013
Up early today for my winery tour, I’m pretty excited to be spending the day seeing around the countryside and villages, wine tasting, and of course spending time with people! The town is very quiet early, streets nearly devoid of people and shops all closed and shuttered, a totally different feel to yesterday.
Early morning Bordeaux, not a town of early risers!
There was only about a dozen people on the bus, different nationalities and all pretty quiet for the first half of the day. We made stops at a few different wineries and had lunch outdoors at one of the most picturesque. The buildings and furnishings were gorgeous, the owners were so very generous with their time and opening parts of their homes to these tourist buses. The people seem friendlier and more open here than anywhere else I’ve been in France, maybe it’s being in the countryside.
Chateau Siaurac, Bordeaux region of France
We had a little hiccup after lunch when the bus wouldn’t start, it really broke the ice, everyone began talking after that! It was funny to watch, all the guys hunkering around the engine and making suggestions, quite a bit of gesturing going on as well.
I didn’t realize until half way through the day that we’d be going to St Emilion where Stephane from My French Heaven lives, I did message him but was too late to organize a catch up. It was great though to see his area, a very beautiful part of the world.
Chateau Siaurac, Bordeaux region of France
It really was a lovely day and to top it off I even had dinner with someone for a change! One of the guys on the tour, a nice American guy, David, asked if I’d like to share a meal afterwards. We went to one of the outdoor restaurants just around the corner from my hotel and had the worst service you could imagine! It was laughable how up himself our waiter was and that’s exactly what we did, just laughed about it. David’s young teenage daughter has a friend at school in America whose mother lives in France; she had been asked to spend a week there during the holidays so David brought her over and was spending the week in France himself and his wife was home with their son. All I could think when he told me he was a lawyer was how they have such a bad reputation in American TV shows. Just goes to show how absurd those preconceived ideas are, he was a really nice guy.
Next day I was off on the train again, this time to San Sebastion in Spain
MidLife Traveller 