June 15 : Bordeaux – St Emilion

Off to the heart of wine country, today an excursion to St Emilion.

St Emilion is a Unesco World Heritage site and according to the tourism stats attracted 1,200,000 visitors last year (2015). Surrounded by vineyards, chateaux and all the more industrial aspects of wine production on a large scale.

An attractive looking but quite touristy spot with many wine stores and arts and crafts locations. Some of the wine outlets are rather high end.

Others, such as the one we patronized are quite reasonable in their selections and prices. Our motto is if you buy it here you drink it here, which could be a problem given our recent buying! This also applies to cheese.

We had a good menu du jour at the restaurant “Les giron’dines” two menu du jour “un pichet de rouge” coffee and tip for 58 Euro. Just think Euro = Dollar and things are about even.

The main church is the Collegiate Church which dates to the 12th Century. A mix of styles and in need of some TLC.

The town is built into the side of a hill with an upper and lower section. Some interesting walking to get from top to bottom.

The upper section has the Collegiate Church and the Tourist Office along with the Bell Tower and restaurants and shops.

The Bell Tower is some 50 Metres tall and is built directly over the Monolithic Church. (see below)

We took a tour through the underground sections with a guided group. In the limestone hill below the upper section are the catacombs and the Monolithic Church (MC) . The MC was carved directly out of the limestone into the side of the hill. It is a very large space some 20 metres by 30+ metres with a 20 metre ceiling. While in that large room looking at the 1200 year old pillars our guide just had to note that we were directly under the 4,500 tonne Bell Tower!

This you tube is a bit bombastic but you will get the impression:

I guess he had not noticed the no pictures sign.

The Bell Tower was added to the underground church partly in order to help pilgrims on the Santiago de Compostella trail find the town and its pilgrim friendly services.

A good visit and a fascinating town with one notable exception:

Red means occupied et Le pipi rustique en jardin.

You would think that a town with that much marketing and promotion skill to attract those 1,200,000 visitors would get the fact that if you have guests its rude not to provide toilet facilities that meet the volumes of people and meet some kind of sanitation standards. Not to mention the blatant sexual discrimination evident that men can pee free but women need to pay 50c and join the lineup – for no toilet seat, dirty washroom, no toilet paper and no where to wash the hands. Call me a spoiled North American but we expect way better than what is provided there. Saint Emilion can certainly afford to treat its guests better.

The cynical among us might think it an attempt to force the visitors into the local eating establishments but we can’t believe the French reputation for hospitality would allow that, do you?

Don’t let that deter you from the other attractions but take your 50c coins and your own paper products – toilet seats are too big to carry.

Enough of that – off the soapbox…

Yesterday a shopping trip to nearby Libouron. The Market Square will be good when the renovations are done.