For the longest time, I’ve been intrigued by Saint-Emilion. I’d seen iconic photos of the sprawling village from the vantage viewpoint above the city years ago and had since then wanted to visit.
Also, once upon a time, I used to work with wines (a part-time job I had back in school) so I’d always been intrigued by Saint-Emilion thanks to Semilion wine.
On this wine trip to France, we finally got to visit the beautiful village of Saint-Emilion.
Excited, I zipped off to the Collegiate Church as soon as we arrived (to be fair, it was right next to where we parked)…
…before making my way to the balcony with that amazing view of the village!
Oh, it was every bit the French village perfection I’d imagined! With the sun shining and the temperature considerably much warmer, we set off to explore more of this picturesque French village.
The best view in the village, after the balcony, is probably from up in the tower and so we headed up there to take in a different perspective of Saint-Emilion.
Saint-Emilion is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site, not just because of the village but because of the vineyards around it, which has pretty much stayed intact and in production since its early days many centuries ago.
Up on the Tower, the view is incredible as from up here, you get to not only see the ancient village of Saint-Emilion but also all of the historic vineyards all around it – kinda balancing things out nicely.
One sight you have to visit in Saint-Emilion is the Monolithic church, a church carved out of a single piece of rock in the hills. Suffice to say, you definitely don’t get churches like this anymore.
The pillars inside have had to be re-enforced so it’s not quite as pretty perhaps it was back in the day but you can still appreciate the grandeur and the history behind this church as you roam through the halls.
On leaving the church, we had two choices – stop off for a glass of wine and soak up the rest of the sunshine… or carry on exploring the village on foot. Much as I’d like to say I did the first one, we decided instead to go for the latter. I’d been far too intrigued by the village to just sit down in one place.
And so off we carried on, through the village, stopping off to peer at the pretty little French houses, making up stories in my head of what the inhabitants were like…
…until we ended up back at the balcony we started with and, with a quick schlep to check out Les Grandes Murailles – the façade of an old Dominican monastery (the first thing you see when you arrive into Saint-Emilion), we said farewell to this beautiful French village.
All that time spent in the sunshine in Saint-Emilion sure did work up a thirst 😉 and so we headed to the next vineyard, Château la Dominique, for a little jaunt around the vineyards, swiftly followed by some wine tasting.
If you do visit the chateau, by the way, look out for the rooftop bit. It’s got a stunning view of vineyards (including the private chateaus owned by the LMVH group – Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) and is filled with lots of pebbles made to resemble grapes so that walking on them is reminiscent of the old ways of making wines by walking on the grapes to crush them.
Back downstairs, we proceed to work our way through the many vintages of the chateau, leaving us nice and merry by the time we left.
For dinner tonight, we would be staying in at our new French Chateau for the night – Maison Du Vins, where we’d arranged for a chef to come around to make dinner. Alas, we arrived at the Chateau at night, which is so much harder to photograph but let me show you some of the rooms at this chateau…
Settled in for the night, we kicked back and relaxed (with a couple of glasses of wine – ergo why most of the wine we bought never made it back home), before being summoned for dinner.
I love food at the best of times but having food professionally made for you in the convenience of your own home (even if just for the night) is certainly the perfect way to finish off an early day (even if the most ‘stressful’ thing you did all day was drink wine 😀 ).
The next morning, we said farewell to the chateau and headed off to in search of more of France!
Another day, another chance to taste our way through French wine country… 😉 😜 Catch you for more of that (in Bordeaux!) in the next post.
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