St Emilion, underground caves, wine and heat

We have now been in St Emilion for two whole days and we are getting ready to move on, looking forward to getting back on the bikes.  The weather has been fantastic and hot, I think we are getting showers and cooler temperatures next week, which will be quite nice for the riding.

Isabelle was working on Thursday night, so spent the evening drinking lots of nice wine with Jason (slept well, no surprise after the biking and the wine).  Yesterday we planned our trip for the next 5 weeks, with Isabelles help.  We are heading up to Paulliac, then over to the coast, ridingdown the bike paths to Arcachon, then coming over through Bordeaux again, then we come over to Periguex, then our 9 day Lonely Planet tour around the Caves and Chateaux, finishing in Cahor (pronounced Ca OR - lessons from Isabelle).  Then we are hoping to go down to Carcassone, Perpignan and finishing in Toulouse.

Jason helped us looking at the flights and train options and we are booked to fly from Toulouse to Heathrow at 7am on Monday 12th July.  So we have booked in at a hotel in Toulouse for 2 nights b wfore that, so that we can break the bikes down.  Much easier (and cheaper) than getting the train back.  We will probably have to pay some excess baggage, but still much easier and cheaper and we can get the tube to Ealing easily.

Went out for lunch (very expensive - but yummy), and a walk around St emilion, then I went with Isabelle to pick upthe children and get groveries, including some yummy Champagne and lots of 3 - 6 Euro bottles of wine which are very drinkable. We have been trying to work out how to get wine back toNew Zealand, but it is pretty expensive, so we will check at the Post Office tomorrow, but all up I think it will be too tricky.

Nice evening last night with Isabelle, Jason went to work as a bouncer.  Had nice BBQ'd duck and salad and cheeses.

Today, Peter and I biked in to St Emilion (a whole 2 km) and did the touristy thing.  We bought a better map and a guide book for St Emilion.  Interesting history, inhabited from 450,000 years ago, with the first 'Aquitaines', the location is limestone and has been used for many years as a quarry.  The stone was quarried for the houses in Bordeaux and you can see that the town is in a 'dent' in the hills, but there are also 70 hectares of underground caves.  They have been variously used over the years for catacombs (graves) and now for cellars for the wine production.

St Emilion was a Saint, who lived in a cave (which we went and saw, but it is privately owned, so no photos allowed - but that didn't deter the three young male americans who didn't think it applied to them  - the dimunutive tour guide took them aside and gave them quite a telling off) - for 17 years.  It has a natural spring, which is supposed to cure blindness and a 'fertility chair'.  The furniture ( a bed and a chair) are carved into stone.

Over the years, St Emilion has been on the border of the French and English territories in the 1500's and had Benedictine monks and more recently (late 19th C and 20th C), been a famous wine producing place.  Each hectare here can produce 6000 bottles of wine, and a 2ha property can be profitable.  Photos of the cute viallage of St Emilion below:

View of the wineyards around St Emilion, as we were riding in to town this morning.

The Bell tower and St Emilion, beautiful day.

Me in front of the fortified wall and moat.  you can see the positions for the archers up the top of the building.  This is the back of the mansion Malet-Roquefort Residence, photo below is the front of it.

One of many photos that I took from the top of the Bell Tower of St Emilion, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Gardens behind the mansions (no way you can tell they are there by walking around.) the one nearest to me has two cows in the garden.  These are promoting the exhibition in Bordeaux and are in the grounds of the 5 star hotel (which has a 2 star Michelin restaurant).

The entrance to the underground church, 11 metres high, 38 meters long and 20 meters long).  They still have 2 masses here every year.  the bell tower on top of it and the limestone, with catacombs and drainage that is blocked with bodies, mean that there is a lot of pressure on the roof and the pillars.  The roof has started to crack, and they have huge steel support systems around the pillars.  They have cleaned all the bodies out of the drains and now they are working on a scientific method to try and preserve the rock.

Rode the whole 2km back home, and watched the womens Roland Garros final, which has just finished. Now we will go and have some wine, and finalise our accommodation for tomorrow night.

Love Carey and Peter