Wine, wine and more wine

Wednesday 20th May
Right the other story.... St Emilion.....
St Emilion is a medieval village set up on a hill and was home to Emilion in 700AD, we went on an underground tour of where he had hermitted himself for many years in a cave, we also went through the Monolithic Church, Trinity Chaple, climbed 'The Keep' or the Kings Castle and the Bell Tower for absolutely stunning views of St Emilion. Amazing to think that this has all been there for 1300 years, the streets were very steep, narrow and cobbled. We spent about 5 hours wandering around this beautiful town. After meeting a couple of Aussies we decided to stay the night in the camping ground with them - that is only after Rae heard about a great wine shop selling Bordeaux wines cheap - Rae thought her French was getting pretty good but there was some confusion in the shop when tasting - the guy's English was as good/bad as Rae's French - first Rae asked for a petite taste and when he started pouring she said wee glass - of course yes in French is oui pronounced wee so he thought I was saying yes yes more! I ended up tasting three very large glasses of wine - when I walked out the shop we were carrying two 2.25 litres of wine in plastic containers - what a way to go!! thanks to Gary & Maria for letting us know about that shop, we met them at the winery we stayed in the night before, run into them in St Emilion the next day also.
Ended up having a great night with the AussiesRick and Jane and decided to travel with them the next day to Dune de Pilat which is the largest sand dune in Europe - of course Oz has bigger ones! After a gut busting trek to the top for the kiwis - the Aussies took the stairs - the view from the top was great and the trek down was pleasant. We also ran into Gary & Maria there, it is a small world.
On the way to Dune de Pilat we drove through Bordeaux which reminder us a little of London - the only other memorabila we have from Bordeaux is a black stripe down the back of the camper - there is a black car in Bordeaux that has a white stripe down the side - the worst thing was we didn't even know unitl Rick and Jane following told us.
The four of us then went to Arcachon where Jane taught us to drink Guiness at a local seaside bar, after 3 each ended up back at camping ground for a reasonably early night.
Monday we headed to Mimizan, minus Rick and Jane who headed north, where we spent the night with 49 other campervans in an aires which is a park over type place on asphalt sometimes with power - basically just a supermarket carpark by the sea but much cheaper than the camping grounds.
Yesterday we went to Hossegor, also stopping at small villages on the way - stayed at another aire in Capbreton nearby and today are heading south towards Bayonne and Biarritz on the SW of France. We will probably stay there tonight as the weather is better so an afternoon on the beach may be for us today. Tomorrow will start going east the French side of the Pyreenees before crossing over to Spain on the east coast.
We will keep dodging the dog poo for another few days!


Brent and Rae