Saint Émilion

We drove from Clermont Ferand, winding our way through the volcanic mountains and thick pine forests of Auvergne and Limousin before descending into the Acquitane region, arriving at the beautiful Hotel Grand Barrail in Saint Émilion in the afternoon. The hotel is a chateau set amongst the vineyards, with a terrace perfect for an afternoon aperitif. We had a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant, before retiring to our suite, which of course has its own spiral staircase (more stairs!).

After breakfast, we drove into the charming medieval town of Saint Émilion, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its living history of wine-making. It really is all about the wine, with every second shop being a wine merchant of some sort. It was a bit early for tasting so we made our way up to the Place du Clocher (Bell Tower) to look at the spectacular view across the town and vineyards beyond, and then sat in the square in the warm sun and had a coffee until it was wine-tasting o'clock.

Having chosen not to visit any of the wineries themselves, going into the wine shops was a good alternative because they will give you a tasting of a variety of wines and there is no-one else there, perfect for Adrian to have long, in-depth wine conversations with like-minded individuals. We walked away with only 4 bottles of lovely local wine (some sort of record!).

For lunch, we chose a casual restaurant that served duck hamburgers with foie gras (a local product), which is not something you see every day, so that's what we had. It was very tasty and quite rich, unsurprisingly. After lunch, there was one more quick cognac tasting at a place we'd promised to return to from the morning when it was too early for cognac, before the designated driver (me), drove us back to the hotel for a nap.

We got a taxi back to town in the evening. It was much quieter in town except for the crowd of cruise ship daytrippers waiting to get into their restaurant around the Tower. We bypassed them and found a restaurant with a courtyard at the bottom of the hill, which was quiet. It was a lovely warm evening so we sat outside to eat for the first time on the trip and had lamb chops cooked on the woodfire brazier in the courtyard, truffle mash 😋 and a bottle of local wine.

After dinner, we had the place to ourselves and found some great vantage points to see the Bell Tower lit up and the Harvest Moon. It was such a lovely experience of Saint Émilion.

On our last morning in Saint Émilion, we took a tour of the Monolithic Church (the only way to get inside as it is privately owned) and learned about the history of the town, its namesake, Saint Émilion, and visited the church and catacombs dug into the rock in the 12th century.

We then did the short drive to Bordeaux, gladly said goodbye to our rental car and checked in to our lovely boutique hotel, Hotel Yndo.Read more