Time to head out west for some travel in France

The temperature in France has dropped to single digits, there’s Christmas decorations everywhere and the canals are now closed for the winter. Ivan and I and our canal boat Laura have settled into our winter mooring spot, which is the port of Roanne, where we will stay until April next year. During the winter months we’re planning on using Laura as our base for travel in France and different parts of Europe. We started with a trip out west to the Bordeaux region.

Unexpected treasures

Travelling in France is rarely boring as there are so many interesting things to see, like this little town that we drove through. We could see it from a distance and it looked quite stunning. The town is called Beynac-et-Cazenac and is just an example of the types of sights that a car trip in France provides. But these little treasures are only visible if you travel off the main motorways.

Catching up with a new friend

The main reason for our trip west was not just to do some travel in France but also to visit Martine, a beautiful lady we met on the canal near Santenay. Martine invited us to stay with her, so we did. She lives in a tiny village called Epargnes and she has a gorgeous home. Martine cooked us a traditional French meal of duck confit and crispy potatoes. Of course, we had an apero (or two), plenty of wine and plenty of fromage after dinner.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the lounge room and in particular the light which was made from an oxen yoke that used to belong to Martine’s grandmother. Many of Martine’s treasures were her grandmothers and we had a real sense of history inside her cosy home. We loved our visit and will stay in touch with Martine as she is an absolutely beautiful soul.

La Rochelle

We spent a night in La Rochelle which is on the west coast facing the Atlantic Ocean. We wished we’d stayed a few more days here as it was stunning. Another place on our list to re-visit.

Bordeaux

Next stop was Bordeaux, the wine capital of the world. Bordeaux is a beautiful city to explore on foot and we highly recommend a visit. The food and wine is outstanding, the architecture is stunning and the people are super friendly. What more could you want? Here’s me raving about Bordeaux after a few too many drinks.

No trip to Bordeaux is complete without a trip to the wine museum, which is called La Ćite du Vin. It’s a multi media celebration of all things wine from around the world. The museum tour concludes with a wine tasting. Now that’s my kind of museum!

La Ćite du Vin

St Emilion

The next stop on our travels in France was the village of St Emilion, which is only an hour or so drive from Bordeaux. What a gorgeous village! I’ve run out of superlatives for describing France but this place deserves them all. It has been designated as one of France’s most beautiful villages and you can see why. It has cobblestone streets, many restaurants, plenty of history and is completely surrounded by vineyards. The first vineyards were introduced here by the Romans in the second century.

Saint Emilion’s lesson in economic development

I love the story of how the town of Saint Emilion became famous and grew its economy. Apparently back in the day pilgrims brought a lot of money to a town. But pilgrims only visited sacred sites and Saint Emilion (or Ascumbas as it was then known) had nothing sacred. So someone in the town in the 11th century decided to dig an underground church to lure the pilgrims. This is still the largest underground church in Europe and it’s very impressive. It was built right next to a cave that an old monk called Emilion lived in. The church decided that Emilion deserved to be a saint because of three miracles he had allegedly performed 400 years earlier. The town was renamed in Saint Emilion’s honour and pilgrims visited in droves, bringing their tourism dollars with them. To me, this is economic development at its finest.

Today you can visit the underground church, the cave that Saint Emilion lived in as well as burial catacombs. The tour is definitely worth it, so don’t miss this if you’re visiting St Emilion.

My parents visited St Emilion 9 years ago and loved it. Here’s Ivan recreating a photo of my dad. The only thing missing this time around is the summer flowers.

Of course we had to visit a winery and have a bit of a tasting while we were in Saint Emilion so we chose Chateau du Pressac. It was amazing.

Here’s some more pictures of Saint Emilion, as it’s so gorgeous. We loved the autumn colours.

Rocamadour

For the last leg of our travels in France we visited Rocamadour, a place I’ve wanted to see for years. Rocamadour is an ancient village built into rock on the side of a cliff. It’s another place that has been designated as one of France’s most beautiful villages and again, you can see why.

Each April, Rocamadour holds an event called the transhumance of the sheep, where a few hundred sheep are walked from village to village over 5 days. It’s to prevent fire as the sheep eat the vegetation as they go, creating a fire break. Around 500 people take part in the event and I’m hoping that we can as well. It looks like a great way to see the countryside around Rocamadour, walking at the pace of sheep and each town holds a festival celebrating the sheep. Sounds amazing. I must dust off my Bo Peep outfit.

It’s going to be a chilly winter!

On our drive back to Roanne we crossed the Massif Central highlands and saw our first lot of snow. It was only about 30km away from Roanne so no wonder it is so cold. It’s hard to believe that only six weeks ago we were in 28 degree heat and now the temperatures are in the single digits. Many of the ski resorts in France have opened early so it looks like it’s going to be a cold winter. Brrrrrr. We have a number of heaters on the boat so hopefully we’ll be toasty warm.

Back home again

So now we’re back on our boat Laura in the port of Roanne. We love it here because there are plenty of people living on their boats over winter. It’s a real community and very social. Monday nights we play darts in a local pub with other boaters, Thursdays there are drinks in another pub and then there’s coffees, lunches and other activities. We’re never bored. And there’s lots of people here with dogs, so we’re getting our fix. We even got to babysit two beautiful dogs for a whole day, which was heaven.

So what’s next for us? Well, my brother Geoff and his family are heading over this way for a holiday. So we’re meeting them in Italy. We’ve never visited Italy before and we’re looking forward to it. While they are here we will also incorporate some travel in France and we’ll be spending Christmas in Colmar in the north. We may even have a white Christmas! There’s no doubt about it, life is extraordinary for us and we’re loving this break from work.