The Garonne and the Dordogne

Saturday and we left the safety and confines of the ship for the brave new world! Collected our car at Hertz, a stick-shift Opel and made our way, with the help of the stern-voiced lady on Garmin GPS, out of Bordeaux.

We had promised to go back to Saint Emilion to explore more of this attractive little town but, alas, so did half the rest of France! Parking was on the sides of all the roads leading into the town and they extended a mile or so out of town.

That many French people we can do without, much as we love the French. We drove through the vineyards nearby and after a short while decided to move on to our next hotel destination, the city of Cognac. Yes, that;s where all the grapes are grown for the various Cognac blends/brands.



Trouble was there was also a motor rally going on in the small towns and stern Garmin-lady could not fathom why we did not follow her directions to the letter. Of course relying on stern-lady had left us without a detailed map of the area and we had to make like a bushman and wander around crying "Where the blazes are we?" (You will note the language clean-up).

Finally we found a familiar road number and traced our way back to a route sans motor rally. In revenge, stern-lady decided to stay off the fast and spectacular motorways of France and show us what rural and small town France is like - I'm convinced that we doubled the distance to Cognac by way of the one lane back roads and byways of the region, courtesy Garmin-lady. Still we got to appreciate small town France, even although temperatures have now reached into the nineties (Fahrenheit) in Europe. We also discovered that the air conditioning in European cars cannot hold a match to American auto conditioning.

We arrived at our charming hotel - 16th Century by the looks of it - without air or modern plumbing. Still despite the fact that the hotel is only opened at 3 pm for check-in - and I do mean closed - the doors are locked and staff only arrive at 3 on the dot, we found it to be charming in a rustic sense. w
We reserved a place for dinner at the hotel restaurant - the very last table - and proceeded to rest until dinner.

Dinner was washed down by a vintage Grimbergen Belgian beer, served in a Leffe glass. I had lamb shank - a very large lamb produced this one.





Tomorrow we shall tour one of the famous Cognac wineries in this city - I wonder which one it will be?