During the night the bed that Judy was in parted company in the middle, and she ended up sleeping on the floor most of the night. It was also very noisy with doors slamming all night it seemed. Oh what fun we are having! After the usual petite dejeuner de baguettes et cafe au lait we packed up our bikes and started out for St Emilion.
The Pomerol wine district is just outside of Libourne. This area is not very large and we were soon in the St Emilion district.
As we cycled along we could see the workers in the fields picking the grapes. We waved to them and they waved back. very friendly. Some fields had big blue mechanical pickers in them and we could smell the fermented grapes as we passed the different chateau.
We stopped in front of a huge chateau, that was also a very expensive hotel and took some pictures.
This one is dark, I think the rain is about to start.
In St Emilion we took the tour train around to see the chateaux in the area but because of the rain it was hard to get a good idea of the countryside. St Emillion is very touristy, and we attracted a lot of attention from the english speaking tourists because we were on bicycles and it was raining cats and dogs. Whose idea was this anyway?
We ran into the Spanish couple whom we had met at the hotel in Libourne. They had been traveling in Europe for nine weeks. A couple from California spotted us huddling in a doorway to get out of the pouring rain, and the woman remarked to her husband "I've found the cyclist!" They had seen the bikes at the front of the church where we had left them and because they had done a lot of cycling themselves, they were in sympathy with us. They told us they had done the Jasper to Banff trip in Canada and had found it wonderful. I too want to do that trip sometime. At lunch we visited with a couple from North Carolina.
At the magasin du vin we arranged to go see a wine cave. Two young chaps from New Zealand decided to go with us. It was raining so hard when we were going to the cave we could not see. The guys from New Zealand were in a car and went ahead to lead the way for us.
Two young French women in limited English explained to us the working or the vignoble. We were shown the limestone cave where the wine was aged and then taken to a room for the tasting. We bought a bottle of wine "Chateau Pasquette 1989" for 53 francs. It was a prize winning year for that particular Chateau. Later we toasted the ladies at St Mary's at the appropriate time. We were not overly impressed with the wine. We are getting more particular about our wine.
We couldn't find a room in St Emilion so we cycled back to Libourne and took a room at the Hotel de France, pres de le gare. It was a very old building and the toitlette was down the hall, but the room was large. We needed the room to spread out our wet clothes. It must have been a very classy place at one time. Virginia found a note from Brian in her luggage, which made her very lonesome. I think she was ready to get on a plane at this point and go home, having so much fun.
We are tired and everything is damp. There is no heat in the room. My spirits are still good, optimist that I am and Judy still wants to continue our planned route We have discussed other possibilities if the weather does not improve. Maybe a train to somewhere. The bicycles are a big problem! Maybe someone will steal them. Maybe things will look better in the morning. 20km.
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To check out some of my other adventures follow these links.
El Camino de Santiago, Spain
Ecuador and Peru adventures
Trekking in Nepal