France 2024 – Days14 and 15 – Giulia has come to visit me! Part 1

I was busy like a bee all morning, tidying the house. I expected Giulia to arrive at 2 pm, but she had to stop for a rest and got here at 4 pm. After happy hugs, and getting her settled down, we jumped on her car and went for a “short”, 50-km drive to the Bordeaux region and to Saint Emilion in particular. Yes, this is the Saint Emilion of prize-wines fame. It is a charming medieval town, set on a knoll that overlooks hundreds of hectares of vineyards, and everything within it seems to revolve around wine. There are little bottles, medium-size bottles, large bottles, and enormous bottles, whose price would make you go pale. An interesting sign showed the price of a grand cru wine by vintage year, so you can check what a vintage from your birth year would cost: Raimond was born in 1952 and his would cost 665 euros, whereas me, born in 1953 would only set you back 426 euros. Géraldine and Chrissy, who are babes in comparison, fetched 226 and 786 euros, respectively, and Faby and DJ, born in 1977, were worth a measly 130 euros. Chrissy got the prize for being the most expensive of us all!

Of course we had to have a glass of wine at the courtyard of the castle, which was OK but not necessarily great. Clearly I still have to learn a lot about good wine.

Back at home we uncorked a bottle of Bergerac wine, and found it excellent, particularly as accompaniment to my warmed chicken cacciatore on a bed of freshly made cous-cous.

The day after, having enjoyed a typical French petit déjeuner of croissants and pain au chocolat, we were ready to start exploring in earnest. Giulia drove 700 km to get here, so another 50 km here or another 60 km there seems a small investment to check out the campagna and the towns she has been reading about in her dog-eared travel guide of southern France.

So we drove to the village of Angoulême, 100 km to the north of Bergerac, famous because of its annual International Festival of the BD (band dessinée or comic books). It also has a small but very pretty Gothic church (probably more than one) and a grand cathedral that overlooks a panorama of green fields, patches of forests, and a few scattered villages. It was raining lightly as we strolled through the old town, but that was not going to stop a couple of old pros, nor did it greatly deter the locals, because today is Saturday and the weekly shopping for fresh produce had to be done at the open market. Eventually it came to be lunch time, for which Giulia had prepared some sandwiches and I had brought a couple of oranges, and we had our break in the gardens of City Hall, which had originally been the castle that protected the city against marauders.

Next stop was Périgueux, half-way between Angoulême and Bergerac, where we visited the Vessuna, or Gallo-Roman museum, and the Roman amphitheater which has now been turned in a beautiful park. The weather had now turned for the better, so our stroll through the old part of town was quite delightful.

On the way to Bergerac we stopped at a supermarket to do some shopping, both for the next couple of days, and for Giulia to acquire a good collection of terrines (pathés) and French cheeses, to which her son Giacomo is particularly partial. Back at home we had a pastis and escargot for appetizers, a yummy salad and broiled fish, and strawberries for dessert. Life is good!