Castles, Bordeaux & Au revoir

On the road towards Bordeaux and the wonderful wine region we crossed through Cognac. We had a short stop in the city of Cognac and a tasting at CAMUS, one of the many cognac producers.

After a very windy lunch with local French produce from the market in La Rochelle we headed for our stop for the night, Château de Lussac. I myself, wanted to stay at one of the many old castles in France.

We got to the small town of Lussac close to Saint-Émilion early to get most out of our stay. The castle was beautiful, but we, I especially, were quite disappointed when we found out we weren’t staying in the castle but a side building :/

The castle garden was equipped with a pool and a new paddle court, and we had a game before heading out for dinner.
The town of Lussac didn’t offer up a lot of choices for food, so we took a short drive to Saint-Émilion, a gorgeous hilly town surrounded by wine fields. The town had lots of good restaurants and wine bars.

We had dinner at a small place restaurant / wine bar, Sous La Robe, where I had steak and a good glass of bordeaux. Kirsten had an even better dish with pulled pork and another glass of bordeaux.

The next day I was up early and had a swim before our breakfast where we were finally let in to the castle, I have a thing with castles I know. After a nice breakfast in the castle, we headed out for a wine tasting at Château de Pressac, one of the bigger producers in Saint-Émilion on the top of a hill overlooking the wine fields. After a tour and a tasting of different wines we moved on to Chateau Coutet a smaller organic producer originally owned by three sisters. We had a tour and a tasting here as well with a whole badly mannered Italian family, but the guide was great.

Next stop was Pomerol, another highly profiled bordeaux region. We had a stop at Château du Tailhas which is a small family owned producer. The wine was great and they even served some of their wines at Queen Elizabeth II 50th wedding aniversary where they had a Tailhas Pomerol 1988.
Last stop of the day was at Château Taillefer in Pomerol before heading to our B&B in the city of Bordeaux.

We had a stroll around Bordeaux in the sunshine and found ourselves a wine bar Les Trois Pinardiers, since Kirsten was the designated driver of the day, she was now thirsty for some bordeaux wine. After dinner and a glass or two, we tasted some wine at another place, Aux Quatre Coins du Vin. A place with vending machines with wine. Here you just put in a plastic card and select the amount of wine you wanted – taste, half glass or normal.

The next day we visited a big marked in Bordeaux before wandering into the center to get some breakfast/brunch at Chamade, tres bien! We then headed to one of the city’s biggest attractions Cité du Vin, a big beautiful wine museum. Actually maybe one of the best I’ve visited. The visit ended with a glass of wine, included in the ticket on the 8th floor with a beautiful view over Bordeaux.

Kirsten had booked a bike tour in the afternoon, so we spend 3 hours biking around all of Bordeaux seeing many of the sites and getting some historical information as well. We also visited the very cool area Darwin, and old industrial area now turned into a cultural urban scene with bars, café, skate park and a lots of other things.

This was it for our short stop in Bordeaux, I am definitely recommending it. Such a nice city with a lot to offer – we will be back!

We had a stop for the night in a small town south of Bordeaux in a B&B at a lovely French couple, we had a good chat and a swim in the morning before leaving. We wanted to see the big Dune du Pilat, but unfortunately the weather was against us, so instead we decided to drive south to San Sebastian.