We set off in the am heading South and West. We made it to Pont du Gard in the morning and walked about the Roman Aqueduct for an hour or so. Hard to imagine designing and building such a thing and to have it last some 2000 years. Just wow. We drove on to Carcassonne which I recall visiting in my college years. Seems a little more touristy then I remember but still a beautifully stunning walled village up on a hill. We toured the village then found a place to have cassoulet a famous dish from the area. The following day we drove some 3 or 4 hours to St Emilion considered the capital of the ‘Right Bank’ Bordeaux wine scene. A beautiful city in its own right with many wine vendors though few wine tasting sites. We tried to taste wine in a couple of vendor shops but they said we had to buy a case of wine before we could taste it. What?? We drove off searching for open vineyards. Stopped at several that were listed as open but no they were not. We had had a good wine with lunch in St Emilion so we sought out that winery. They were able to squeeze us in and we had a lovely tasting of their wine which led to us shipping a case home. I had not booked any lodging for this portion of the trip so we searched online for something. We found a lovely Chateau on the Dordogne River that had open rooms. They met us at the door with wine and then proceeded to upgrade our room. They recommended a restaurant one village over called Cafe Cuisine. We drove over using google maps but really could not find any obvious sign of a restaurant. We eventually looked into something labelled ‘hotel’ and there was the Cafe. Turned out to have excellent food. We drove up the Left Bank the following day, driving through Margaux, Pauillac, St Julien, etc. We had booked a couple of wine tastings so ended up at Chateau Baladine in the morning. We waited for the local wine worker to open up the place then ended up in a crow’s nest kind of place tasting a variety of their wines. Our host was difficult to understand but he sure laughed a lot. He pooh-poohed California wine as pretty much all of the french do, but he also complained about Chateaus just a kilometer down the road getting $6000 for a bottle of their wine. He told us St Petrus which is over on the right bank in Pomerol has a bottle that sells for $27000 a bottle. We didn’t get to try any of those wines. We drove south and remembered a winery our hosts from the previous night had recommended, Chateau Branas in Margaux. We stopped in on what turned out to be a very busy working winery. They had a free host who opened up the tasting room for us and we sat tasting some lovely wines. We shipped some back home as well. Off to our final Chateau which was the most formal of them all, Chateau Kirwan. Apparently I booked the following day not the day we were there but after a short wait they served up their fabulous wines. We always buy at least a bottle of wine at these tastings as they usually do not charge to taste.
We dropped our car off in Bordeaux the next day. Always a challenge driving in a big unknown city. There seemed to be all kinds of construction going on which made google maps and waves unreliable for navigation. We struggled to find the entrance for the rental car return even driving around the train station several times. Eventually found it and a gas station along the way. We purchased a 7 day metro pass for 10 Euro and hopped on a tram to downtown. Bordeaux turns out to be a fairly large, modern town with good public transportation and beautiful old alleys and pedestrian walkways (which means there are lots of bikes, some motorcycles and a few cars). We had a very good vegetarian lunch at ‘Simple’ then an uninspiring visit to the Musee de Vin, not to be confused with the Cite du Vin which is much better. We had dinner at Brasserie Bordelaise, Symbiose, and La Tupina. All were good and would recommend. We walked 7-8 miles a day along with rides on the Trams to help out. Some favs were Cite du Vin, a very modern museum with lots of information on the history and production of wine. There is also a glass of wine at the end presented on the top floor along with access to a wraparound deck for views of the city. We crossed the river on a metro ferry then walked over to Dylan’s. I would call it an artsy community but you could say skateboard park, alternative housing, roller derby school and brewpub. Kind of a mix. We walked about. Had some lunch and beer then walked back to downtown Bordeaux. We also liked Marche de Capuchins which is a food market with many food vendors. We had pinxos there. I should mention a Hall out next to Cite du Vin. Again food market and restaurants and many happy french singing songs and dancing. The french often don’t look at you as you pass on a walk or say Hi, but they sure can have fun at food vendors. I also can not help but mention smoking. Everybody seems to smoke. Probably a higher percentage than in Germany. People will get up in the middle of a meal to go outside to have a smoke. People walk around with vape machines. Not pens but large vats of nicotine oil in a canister the size of a pack of cigarettes. There has got to be a huge difference in lung cancer incidence between France and a West coast city. Why isn’t someone publishing that?
We rode the bullet train to Paris and spent the night in a hotel next to the airport. Not very good sleep that night which is typical for moving day. We were at the airport 3 hours before our flight. Strangely, Katie and I had talked about our 23 generally flawless flights during our 10 week Holiday. We talked of our 23 different lodgings, our uneventful car rentals and train rides. Uneventful until now. We were stopped at checkin. A supervisor needs to talk to us but its not bad. That’s what they said. The supervisor wouldn’t really explain anything just kept saying we can’t fly directly to San Francisco. We have to fly to Chicago first because the CDC has testing sites there. What are they testing for? No answer. Why are they testing? You traveled to Africa right? Yes, some 6 weeks ago! At the gate, the flight personnel let it slip it was something to do with Uganda. Well that was 8 weeks ago. I checked the CDC website and could find no mention of any issues. Well we went to Chicago on a plane with hundreds of other people. None wearing a mask. We arrived at O’hare and the custom’s agent knew who we were! Sent us on to 2 guys in fatigues and plastic gloves! They asked about Uganda. Ah, yes we were there for 3 days 8 weeks ago. Oh we are looking for people who have traveled there within the last 3 weeks. They had an Ebola incident. So we traveled for 8 more weeks on multiple planes including the one to Chicago with nary a mention of this deadly disease. The one where blood comes out of your eyes and ears! Here is a free home Covid test for your troubles. Sorry for the inconvenience. Just a little trickle of smoke out of the ears. On to SFO and home. Sweet Home. And our own bed.