September 24

The time spent in St-Emilion was not as enthralling as I had anticipated. Staying at a winery in a world heritage designated site in one of the world’s premier wine areas sounded amazing. The town was small and littered with wine shops. That was to be expected. There was little else to do. The hundreds of wineries were mostly closed since it was the time of the harvest and the crush. Any winery tasting or tour needed to be booked rather than a drop-in visit. Almost all charge $10-$20 per person for a tour. Ann and I were both now totally exhausted after our 27 days on the lam without a day of rest. That colored our attitude to be sure.

The winery chateau where we stayed was nice but Catherine’s breakfasts were ordinary at best, she was not able to converse beyond minimally in English and she lacked the warmth of a true B&B host. To counter that issue, the other room was occupied by two sisters (our age) from Mississippi and Tennessee. They leased a car and were touring France having a ball. We talked with them at breakfast each morning hearing that soft serene Southern accent, laughing, relating stories and sharing experiences in the town. Without them this would have approached a dismal stay.

One example: One of the sisters told of a friend who always took a bath with a loaded gun near in case of an attacker entering. The other sister said, in that sweet Southern drawl, that if that happened to her the attacker would take one look at the sight of her naked in the bath, take the gun and shoot himself!

We bought two bottles of the Chateau-Pourret, one, the soon to be famous 2005 vintage that she told us not to open for at least 8 years. We paid and were off to the area of Bordeaux. Here another problem occurred that was not our fault – really!

Our sweet British accented lady of the GPS gave us a route to the peninsula of the Medoc, north of the town of Bordeaux. We drove 45 minutes to the Gironde estuary to cross the bridge at Blaye into the Medoc. When we arrived, there was not a bridge but a ferry. It was 11am. The next ferry was to depart 4:30pm. WHAT!

It would take almost two hours to drive down to Bordeaux where the first bridge was and then drive north up to Pauillac, the town across from Blaye. Instead, we drove to Bordeaux centre, walked the shopping area and had a late lunch. From there we drove to our airport Comfort Inn Hotel for the night. We registered, unloaded the car and relaxed for a moment. After that moment, we drove to the airport and delivered the car to EuropeCar.

Ann had gotten an employee out of the office back at CDG airport in Paris to show him a scrape on the right front bumper. This he noted on the paperwork and said he would enter it into the computer. You guessed it; the writing was undecipherable in the carbon copy. The lady checking us in gave us some serious questioning about it but gave us back our receipt for the 800 euros on Visa that they had secured for any damages when we picked up the car.

We walked back to the hotel from the airport and rearranged our luggage for the flight home. We were under our weight allowance by a little so all was well. To bed then a wake up call at 5am for the 5:45am taxi to the airport tomorrow.