BORDEAUX Wine Tasting & Vineyard Camp🍷Cycling to Saint-Émilion

Day 55. 75km (86208kms 8yrs)

Clambering back out of the basement onto the street I bid Aurelie goodbye and set off to the east now. Although heading briefly towards Toulouse I wanted to take a side trip to Saint Emillion in the Bordeaux wine region. Despite not being on any Eurovelo or domestic cycling route the roads were still very agreeable for cycling with bike lanes most of the time.

In arriving in Saint Emillion I was desperate to pee but this is a fancy and touristy place; the restaurant I asked at sent me away with directions to the public toilets. Here I discovered women must pay €0.50 ($AU1; that’s 1% of my weekly budget!) for the privilege, meanwhile men had access to free urinals! There was a sort of shield from public view so I squatted. F the patriarchy! I do not pay to empty my bladder, least of all where men are emptying their bladders for free! Once that was taken care of I could return to and enjoy the gorgeous cloister in which I’d abandoned Gibbo, and its adjoining 12th century church.

In search of a wine tasting I toured the cellars at Clos Des Menuts, but there was no tasting advertised here. Next door it was €10 for two or €25 for 4 tastings. I revised my expectations down. But at Les Cordeliers I got lucky; ordinarily it requires a full tour but in explaining I didn’t have all that much time I was given a quick tasting of three of their Crémant de Bordeaux sparkling wines made for over a century within the ruined cloisters of a 14th-century Franciscan monastery.

I hopped between two public WiFis as one inexplicably blocked Facebook, the other blocking Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee. (In Blaye, Tourist Info’s WiFi bizarrely blocked WhatsApp!) And so with all tourism and admin complete I left town around 5pm. It’s very flat here, the wind is down, and the daylight hours are getting longer so I can still comfortably do an 80km day even with a sizeable break in the middle of it.

Heading south now I picked up Piste Roger Lapébie – a railtrail bike path – which being traffic-free provided a good opportunity for wild camping. The little copse of trees I was aiming at proved impenetrable so instead I pitched up beside a small field of grape vines. Satisfied I was well away from it all I hadn’t accounted for the last couple of cyclists on the bike path which looked down into my field. Oh well, cyclists are probably ok..

I tucked into a very funky goats cheese of the smelly shoe variety, accompanied by an exceedingly nice Bordeaux as the Bordeaux vines outside my tent first glowed red and fell into shadow as the sun set behind me. Optimal bike touring day!

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