Saint-Émilion

Today we would be taking a day-trip to Saint-Émilion. There was a train that left around mid-day, so we had time to wander around Bordeaux a bit, window shop, etc.

This window caught our attention.

Well, we always needed cheese, right? So in we went.

It was like being a kid in a candy store, except with cheese. Here is another picture because cheese.

In this next picture, a human interacts with cheese in a loving and tender way, which resulted in us leaving the store with some cheese that we now owned as our own, personal cheese.

So, in conclusion...

Cheese.

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On to Saint-Émilion.

One of the main red wine areas of the Bordeaux region, the Romans were growing grapes here as early as the second century. The entire town is now a world heritage site. It was named after the monk Émilion, who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock in the eighth century, and it was the monks that followed him that began producing wine commercially in the area. [Factage shamelessly looted from Wikipedia for our mutual enlightenment]

The town itself consists almost entirely of stone buildings containing wine shops.  The other stone buildings house establishments that sell gifts or cookies.

At the guesthouse in Bordeaux, we had spoken at breakfast with another couple that had visited Saint-Émilion extensively in the last couple of days, and had eaten several meals at a restaurant they heartily recommended. They gave us the name of the restaurant, and we would be able to see the tables and awnings in the square below the church. So we looked at each other with anticipatory grins at the view beneath us.

The photo above actually captures most of the town, except for the church directly behind me, and a medieval towery thing that is standing off to my right.

Medieval towery thing

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We had saved up all the mid-day appetite for the restaurant we had heard about at breakfast, so we went down and snagged a table in the shade.

Amidst (surprise!) wine shops.

We started with escargot, and a green salad. Also, of course, a bottle of a local wine - a 2009 Chateau Monbousquet.

As it turned out, the escargot came served on a bed of the salad very similar to the salad we had ordered, and in fact bearing the same vinaigrette dressing. We considered that a bonus.

I do not have words poetical enough to describe this dead snail.

Action shot. Was your eye drawn to the buttery goodness about to drip off of the shell, or did you focus on the luscious garlic and herb laden morsel impaled on the end of the fork? If you said "both", you're ready to play Double Escargot.

For my main, I got a lamb shank. This is a picture of what happened when I prodded the meat gently with my fork. It just kid of fell apart. I did my best to avoid making caveman noises as I devoured it.

Julia got... dun dun duuunnnnn... lamprey. For those of you who are unfamiliar, lampreys are a prehistoric nightmare of an eel fish creature. They haven't changed much at all in the last however many million years. They haven't needed to. They are a perfect prehistoric nightmare. Lamprey is also a classic and iconic Bordelaise dish. Eating some, and eating some here was a can't-miss opportunity.

I liked that this was how my café au lait was served - with the steamed milk in a small pitcher on the side. I could feel like a real barista pouring the milk into the espresso. I tried to make a lamprey design with the foam, but it didn't turn out right.

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As soon as you get to the edge of the stone building part of Saint-Émilion, this is what you see. In all directions.

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One thing we noticed in France is that the public restroom facilities were universally clean and tidy. Now that I'm posting it, I realize that the picture below may not convey that, but I assure you that the variation in color on the floor was simply where paint had worn away. This really was a nice, clean, totally serviceable and un-aromatic facility. It also cost half a euro, and, as it turned out, we had only a single half euro coin between us.

So we... um... shared.

Almost but not quite exactly unlike joining the Mile High Club

So this is a thing you know now.

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 Julia catches a paparazzo in the act of photographing a bell tower.

It has been our experience that it's almost impossible to resist taking pictures of bell towers.

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A visit to Saint-Émilion isn't really complete without a stroll through the hermitage and adjoining chapel.

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It was a little early for dinner, but we went for it anyways before heading to the train station to catch a train back to Bordeaux. We wanted to try the pizza, which our breakfast companions (who were from the US) had praised highly.

While we waited for the pizza to arrive, we busted out our cheeses we had purchased that morning, accompanied by a 2009 Latour-Martillac.

These small cheeses were a raw milk chèvre.

The slab was a slice of raw sheep's milk mountain cheese. It was great solo, or crumbled on top of the pizza.

Ham and mushroom, with olive garnish

The pizza itself was not mind-blowing, but was in fact pretty good. In particular, the sauce was fresh and clean, and might very well have simply been fresh smushed up tomato.