Kiwi Roaming

I am writing this while sitting on the platform at Saint-Émilion train station waiting for the train replacement bus to take us to Libourne before we then train back to Bordeaux. Two days ago we took the same train replacement bus to Libourne – it took us a good half hour to work out that the trains weren’t running and we should be looking for a bus, but we understand the symbols on the platform boards now and the announcements.

Libourne was once a walled city and thriving port town on the River Dordogne, now it seems to be a service town for the region with large format stores and a warehouse district with wine bottling plants etc. Our main purpose for the trip was to go to a laundromat, while washing undies in a sink is ok they take way longer to dry than a good spin on a cold wash cycle.

We took a wander around the old city first and our visit coincided with High School lunchtime so we also experienced gaggles of very well dressed teenagers at every turn. There is a central square where a large market was packing up, surrounded by restaurants and bars. We went into one of the many boulangerie’s and got ourselves sandwich à la salade de poulet and deux chocolatier which we ate outside watching the chaos in the square. We then walked to the cathedral which is being restored, I read something about a church being on this site since the 600’s and it holding some significant treasures – but it was closed and covered in scaffold on one side. Next we ventured down to the port where we walked past some of the old city wall which remains from the 1300’s and discovered a nice promenade with exercise equipment, playgrounds and a cool climbing wall to get up to the top of a slide.

The river is very fast moving and very very dirty with a kind of scum on the top. They have the tiny buses we saw in Avignon here navigating the narrow streets. It’s not cute, I would say it’s pretty enough but is very clear it’s a working not tourist town.

Shutters – Walking the suburban streets of Libourne to the laundromat reminded me about shutters. At our villa in Provence we had sheer privacy curtains and external wooden shutters on our windows which could be secured open or closed manually. In Avignon we had motorised modern external shutters and no curtains, we see this style often closed up on apartments and houses everywhere. Here in Saint-Émilion we have had sheers, curtains and old external wooden shutters as well. In Portugal we had a few places with these external shutters with no motor just a pulley system. My point being shutters are one of the primary ways of both securing windows and shutting out light.

Walking – Steve has very diligently ensured we walk 10km every day while staying in Saint-Émilion, this means a walk down from the village through the country lanes which are mostly edged with 1m high stone walls. Followed by a walk back up. Depending on when we leave it can be quite hot when walking back up the hill and I got a blister in my sandals with sweaty feet one day. Otherwise it’s been amazing to see nothing but vineyards, no paddocks, no livestock just grapes. Even in Libourne there are grapes grown right up to the edge of dystopian looking apartment blocks on the outskirts of the city.

We have loved it here, everywhere you look is a new postcard view, the age of the stone buildings, how well preserved it all is and oh so cute. We even saw a hot air balloon out of our bedroom window one evening. We also enjoyed checking out a few wine bars to try some different wines, returning to our first one on the last day for a bottle of the merlot rose we loved. Very very relaxing and a good break after the Camino.

The train bus only took us back to Libourne, now we wait for the “retard 50 min” train back to Bordeaux, it does mean we have been able to book flights from Barcelona to Alicante in Spain and start planning that part of the trip which is coming up very soon!