Our first detour of the day was the city of Lourdes. We had had several people we'd met in France tell us to skip Lourdes, explaining that it is just a tourist destination. However, when we found our highway north skirting the city, I felt we owed it to ourselves to at least drive through to see it. If we felt a tug, we could stop. But, if we kept driving, there were no second chances.
In we drove and experienced shock and awe of the unpleasant variety at the complete tackiness and touristic nature of the place. It was block after block, street after street of hotels. Tour buses by the multiple dozens. Swarms of people moving like a river of bobbing heads--mostly eating in cafes and going into souvenir shops. It was interesting and affecting to see the number of people coming out of the grotto entrance limping or being pushed in wheelchairs or gurneys. And I am genuinely happy for those who are able to find a deep and spiritual experience in the midst of all the commercialism. Admittedly, we did not go into the grotto itself. Perhaps that would have changed our impression that the spirit of the place was very lacking.
Instead, we aimed the car at Madiran, France's smallest wine appellation at only 500 acres of grapes. Once we made our way there, we were surprised at how little it seemed like wine country. Fields of corn or wheat were everywhere, but hardly any grapes. Eventually we found those elusive vineyards. We have frequently enjoyed Madiran wines during our trip, so it was fun to visit the region, modest though it was.
At dinner Saturday night, we had a bottle of Saint Mont. We had read that there are 5 other estate wines produced in the Madiran area, and this was one of them. We really enjoyed the wine. As we were doing further exploring on Sunday, we kept bumping into Saint Mont vineyards.
We were also focused on figuring out where and what the Armagnac region is. We knew where it was generally, but specifics seemed to be elusive. Then all of a sudden, Armagnac producers seemed to be everywhere we looked. It turns out there are three regions of Armagnac production in this area of Gascony: Bas Armagnac, Armagnac Tenereze, and Haut Armagnac. We spent Saturday night in a town in Bas Armagnac. It was a pretty standard roadside logis, but they had a collection of Bas Armagnacs few others could rival. They had practically every year since 1939 of one producer. We debated tasting the Armagnac from either our birth years or the year of our marriage. This last was the least expensive, being the most recent of the three options. At 42 Euros for a taste, we decided it was more fun to look at them than to taste them. Instead, at dinner, we had a typical aperitif of the region, which is some Armagnac in a glass of the local Cotes de Gascogne red wine. Quite tasty and quite a comparative bargain at 6 Euros.
Sunday, we drove through the Armagnac Tenereze district. I had expected Gascony to be very old and rustic, with lots of evidence of its history (think the Three Musketeers). Until we got to the town of Condom (corny jokes to be set aside), we hadn't really seen the historical monuments or a different architecture. But here in Condom we started to get more a taste of that era.
The Tour d'Armagnac.
The beautiful Cathedral Saint Pierre in Condom.
And the statues of the Musketeers just outside the cathedral.
We spent the night in Fleurance, which has lots of character and just happens to be in the Haut Armagnac region. So, even though we weren't clear on the boundaries of the Armagnac territory, we managed to dip our toes in quite a bit of it.
Notre Dame de Fleurance.
On our way out of the Armagnac area Monday morning, we stopped off at Lectoure, which is a very scenic village. The rest of our drive was pretty standard. We went through Agen, which is a very pretty (but larger) city. We didn't end up spending much time there, mostly because I had a splitting headache that wasn't making me yearn to hoof it around a city in the heat of the day.
Lectoure's Cathedral Saint Gervais and Protais, 15th Century.
We're now at our last destination, the little village of Puisseguin in the Saint-Emilion appellation of Bordeaux. We visited in the area in our tour bus a couple weeks ago, but Jerry loved the idea of spending our last two nights in an actual vineyard in what is considered to be the most scenic area of Bordeaux wine country. He managed to find a little winery that has a few very nicely appointed rooms. We have to go to the neighboring town (about 5km) for dinner, but it's a cute town with a pair of very nice dining options.
Our lodging.
Vineyards in nearby Montagne.
This morning, 7 of us had breakfast in the small kitchen. Initially, we were just five Americans, the other three being a couple from the Denver area and the wife's sister from Chicago. We had a fun visit, comparing notes on where we'd been on our trips and where we were headed. We had visited some of the same places, and they were heading today to Bordeaux where the husband's brother has a house. We were then joined by a couple from Belgium, who interacted with our hostess more than us (for obvious language barrier reasons). But they joined in in humor when I described being without wee-fee for 11 days. The Belgian woman indicated that her companion would have gone crazy without his Internet for such a long time. We all had a good laugh over the image.
After breakfast, our hostess--an employee of the Chateau, both the chamber d'hôte portion and the winery portion--took us Americans on a tour of the Chateau and ended with a tasting of the two primary wines they make (a first label and a second label).
We spent the rest of the day having lunch and sightseeing in the charming town of Saint Emilion. It was raining when we started, but cleared up later. We drove to a few other nearby towns and filled up the car. It gets dropped off at the Libourne train station fairly early tomorrow morning. We then will catch a train to Bordeaux, where we have reservations on a TGV that will take us straight to Charles DeGaulle airport. We're staying at an airport hotel to make our departure Thursday morning a bit easier.
It's been a great trip, a one-of-a-kind combination of things and places and people. But we're really looking forward to coming home too. All we have to do is jump these last few transportation hurdles.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment