Day 5 Saint Emilion loop

September 25, 2022

The bottle of wine that I brought to the pizza party. Rosé is generally not my favourite due lack of substance but the Bordeaux ones have been very pleasant

Maureen loving the e-bike, back to her hybrid for the last day tomorrow

My fellow riders on a lovely fall morning.

Young vines. By law Bordeaux vines can only be watered for the first 2 years after which they have to rely on Mother Nature. This forces the vines to put down deep roots in search of water and strengthens the vines.

One of the really steep streets with a view of the bell tower

Looking up the steep hill made with rocks not cobble stones. There is a historic reason for this. The stones were used as ballast in ships that came to pick up wine so once removed from the ships they were used for streets. There are 2 streets like this in Saint Emilion.

The valley at sunrise this morning with fog in the valley

We had a 2nd day in Saint Emilion so some of our group opted not to ride. Instead, some went hiking while others just wandered the town shopping, wine tasting and Armagnac purchasing. Four of us decided to do the ride. Maureen and Helen borrowed the e-bikes from others so we all had them and set a good pace in order to be back for lunch. The 12-2 lunch hour is sacrosanct and can’t be moved even in a tourist town. It was a lovely cool fall Sunday morning so there was little traffic and beautiful countryside. We stopped for a coffee in Montagne about halfway through the ride. The route today was fairly flat but we didn’t care because we all had motors. Once back in town I had lunch and then a rest since I wandered the village at 7AM taking photos without people on the streets. Tonight we had a group happy hour and pizza dinner in M&Gs flat since we will likely scatter to the winds tomorrow once back in Bordeaux. The Kavanagh clan will be heading back to Canada on Tuesday but I don’t get back to Victoria until Wednesday.

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 559 km (347 miles)

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