Mon 4 Jul 2005
Three years of writing about our travels has taken a toll on me. The thought of one more “we went here, we saw this” journal log, bores the heck out of even me! However, I hate to make it through all these years only to quit a few months before we end our ex-pat experience. With the end approaching all to fast, I feel I had better start playing “catch up”.
We had a long 4 day weekend over the Easter holiday (yeah, I am really that far behind!) and we took a long drive south to the Bordeaux region. Rocamadour was an amazing site and I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived there. It is a small village and church that was cut from the mountainside. Along the bottom edge lays many interesting shops that lead you to a grand staircase which in turn leads you up the mountain to the church. Pilgrims once climbed these stairs on their knees while they said their rosaries. We took one look at them and headed for the elevator. It dropped us off at the entrance to the church which I found quite interesting. The church was literally cut from the stone and many sides where rough stone faced. Everywhere you looked it seemed that walls emerged from rock into beautifully carved facades. Back in 1166 an ancient grave was discovered here and it contained the undecayed body of a man they called St. Amadour. (which means rock lover) Outside, a path wound the rest of the way up the mountain and featured 12 stages of Christ’s life to read about.
The rainy streets lined with shops.
The shop where I purchased a fun hand painted pitcher.
Where the church emerges from the mountain.
Rocamadour from the distance. The castle on top, church midway, and the town below.
The other interesting town that we visited was Sarlat. I was extremely impressed with the old architecture of the buildings. Sarlat has the highest concentration of medieval houses in France and it made for a wonderful, lazy, walking tour through the alleys of the town.
From there we headed into St Emillion, the most well know wine area in the Bordeaux region and the whole reason for our trip to the south. I had envisioned us spending the day walking the streets lined with wine shops, doing some tasting, and walking amid wine fields. Instead I discovered a tiny town with nothing much to look at and shops that were nothing more than glass bottles sitting on top of glass shelves next to glass windows. With three kids in tow I felt I would need to hand over our credit card immediately upon entering so they could begin charging for the damages caused. Just as I was about to give up hope, we came to a shop that had a huge array of wine crate fronts branded with the logos on them. The wines here in France come packaged in wooden crates instead of the cardboard boxes you get in the states. To the French, presentation is a high priority. The crates tend to have elaborate logos and images branded onto them. To me, this is exquisite and I vowed to start a collection. The size of the ladies eyes when I brought 15 fronts in to purchase was enough for me to understand I was a little off my rocker but I still wonder why no one else finds these amazing.
Ken was sent into the stores alone to make the selection of wines that we would take home. I sat in the car and waited. And waited, and waited, until I began wondering if he had forgotten the way back to the car. The girls and I ventured out in search of our missing man and quickly discovered him. He informed me that he bought a TON of wine and we needed to pull the car up to the store in order to load it all. I stared in disbelief. Two cases of wine, which he claims he bought for my sake to get the wine crates. We pulled up to the store and while Ken went in to retrieve our stock, I sat there wondering what on earth possessed him to buy that much wine! I vowed never to let him enter a wine cellar alone ever again. As the long legged, long haired blonde lady came from the store helping Ken carry the crates… what possessed Ken came perfectly into focus for me.
Local Tags: castle, France, holiday, ken, rocamadour, sarlat, st. emillion, wine
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