Saint-Émilion is one of those places I dreamt of visiting … a history steeped in tradition, and a thriving modern viticulture industry, including the world’s first UNESCO listed vineyard! Due to a tight timeframe, we only had an afternoon, an evening and a morning in Saint-Émilion – not enough time as I would have liked, but with 8 weeks to explore France, we had to make a few sacrifices in order to spend decent amounts of time in other places.

We arrived in Saint-Émilion from Sarlat et Canada in our trusty hire car, and I will never forget the look of the lush, green vineyards covering the rolling hillside as far as the eye could see – it was glorious! As we pulled up the long road that led to the medieval town centre, we realised with a bit of a shock that there were cars parked on both sides of the road ALL the way around the town! Seems like everyone else had the same idea to visit Saint-Émilion on the same day as us!

We did a couple of laps around the town – there really was nowhere to park inside the town centre, and all the carparks outside the centre were chockablock, so we went for a cruise around the small hamlets that surrounded the towns – the chateaux where families of winemakers have lived for generations. They were lovely and I wish we had longer to explore the area – we saw quite a few people on bicycles, clearly doing winery cycle tours or something similar.

The approach to Saint-Émilion

 

By the time we cruise around for another half hour or so, the sky had turned overcast and we thought we better try to get a parking spot again before the heavens opened up, so we made our way back to the town centre and lo and behold, there was a park for us! As soon as Dave parked (in the tightest parallel spot ever, I might add!), it began to rain, and since we had some food in the car from the Sarlat markets the day before, we thought it was perfect for a picnic in the car! We may have gotten a couple of funny looks, but hey – the food was tasty and the view over the vineyards sublime! What more could we ask for?!

After a quick, light bite to eat, the rain had pretty much stopped so we grabbed our daypacks, camera and water bottles and made our way into the town cents to explore for a few hours before it was time to check into our accommodation.

First stop was a bustling little wine bar (called O Trois Fontaines) serving tapas style nibbles complemented by a wide range of Saint-Émilion wines – we decided to let the hostess choose for us, with the only stipulations being that we were after something not too heavy (for our food, we had just eaten!) and a typically Saint-Émilion vino. Before too long, we were nibbling on some olives and sipping some delightful cabernet merlot blend. Perfect way to really start exploring the town!

After satisfying our wine cravings (for now), it was time to explore the delightful medieval village of Saint-Émilion. Set in the heart of the world-famous Bordeaux vineyards,  it is not only renowned for its fabulous rolling vineyards and amazing wine, but also for its impressive monuments, cobblestone pathways and beautiful architecture.

A town full of history on a rocky promontory, Saint-Émilion and its surrounding vineyards owe their originality to limestone soil. From the 9th to the 19th century, men worked inordinately hard to extract blocks of stones to construct buildings in the town of Saint-Émilion as well as nearby châteaux. This also accounts for the presence of some 200 km of underground galleries and the largest monolithic church in Europe (which unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to explore due to our time restraints). Limestone is everywhere, and accounts for soil that is exceptionally well-suited to winegrowing.

The Story of Saint-Émilion

In the words of Saint-Émilion’s Site de l’Office de Tourisme, Saint-Émilion is truly a magnificent open-air museum. It all started with a modest hermit…In the 8th century, a monk named Émilion from Vannes in Brittany chose to withdraw from the world in a place named Ascumbas (the town’s original name).

Émilion left his family and native Brittany to devote his life to solitude and prayer. He proved to be very kind and generous to the few people he came into contact with, and performed his fair share of miracles. His reputation soon spread far beyond the Dordogne Valley and many disciples came to be by his side.

Émilion evangelised the local population, and created what went on to become a major monastic centre that his followers naturally named after him. This holy man died on 6 January of the year 767, having spent the last seventeen years of his life in his hermitage. The town of Saint-Émilion and its fabulous underground monuments grew up around this hermitage.

Sightseeing around Saint-Émilion

The town itself is stunning – uneven, beautiful, old cobblestones form the winding pathways that lead around the town – you could very easily break an ankle if you weren’t careful! We spent the next few hours wandering the town, and taking alot of photographs – I am not sure they really do Saint-Émilion justice, but hopefully you can see some of the tranquil, historic beauty in them!

Wine shopping!

Before we knew it, it was later afternoon and after passing so many Celliars (wineshops), we entered one that was near our accommodation called Les Cellier des Chateau that we had stopped past earlier. The guy inside was extremely knowledgeable and provided us a “Saint-Émilion wine education” in about an hour – growing up as a local to the area, wine was in his blood, and he knew the ins and outs of all the local vineyards and which vintages were better than others.

Here are some snaps of the lovely bottles of “vin” we were fortunate enough to be able to taste, as well as some seriously old vintages that I think might be more like vinegar now! We ended up purchasing a couple of cases of the famous Saint-Émilion reds to ship home (don’t ask me to repeat how much the shipping, insurance and Australian taxes we paid, came to – it was exorbitant, but considering we probably could not get the same wine in Australi, and it was our honeymoon – we figured “stuff it!” and bought them anyway!!

By the time we left Celliers de Chateaux (with a lighter wallet for sure), the town had emptied out bait and we moved our car closer to oiur accommodation, a small one bedroom apartment that was a part of the small guesthouse called Les Logis de Roy.

We stayed in the Merlot Room and I think from memory our room was about 125 euro per night. The apartment  was simple, although nicely renovated. I would recommend for the location but would probably suggest trying one of the other rooms that are above the wine shop as we were slightly down the road and perhaps not a priority of the business!

After a piping hot shower, we were, for once, not in the mood for the typical French cuisine and we had spied a little Italian pizzeria just across the way from our apartment so decided to break tradition and go for a non-traditional dinner!

I cannot remember the name of the restaurant itself, which is a shame as the pizzas were good, and the setting very cool – it was set into a limestone cave, and the walls were actually limestone – almost like a wine cellar (which it probably was, once upon a time!). I was fairly simple (aka. boring) in my order – a marguerita pizza with pepperoni added, and Dave got the Piquante with anchovies. Add a couple of beers and we had a lovely meal in the beautiful cave setting of the Pizzeria – definitely not our finest french dining experience, but just what we were after a long day driving and then exploring in the drizzly weather!

Here are some pics showing the town at night, after dinner and between rain showers! I wish we had longer at Saint Emilion – I would really have liked to do the cycle vineyard tours, and explore the town, see the massive underground passages etc – oh well, I guess this is one please we will just have to come back to!