We spent a recent weekend in Bordeaux, France surrounded by its 287,000 acres of vineyards! We left late on a Friday after Jon's workday was complete and caught a plane to Bordeaux. We rented a car and drove through the windy country roads to our Bed and Breakfast outside of the city. The Bordeaux region is the world's major wine industry capital and the vineyards as far as the eye could see were proof! Upon arrival at the Chateau de Crecy, we met our hosts Martine and Bruno who were absolutely lovely. They didn't speak much English, I don't speak any French and Jon hasn't used his French skills in about 14 years. We were able to communicate enough to find a place to go to dinner, Le Caffe Cuisine in a nearby little town. We plugged the address into our GPS and set off. We found the little town easily enough and drove to where the GPS said the restaurant was and it looked like an abandoned street...no lights in the windows, no signs, no hint of a restaurant. We drove around the 4 or 5 blocks that consist of this small town and we could not find this restaurant...or any other restaurant as a back-up. After driving in several circles and on the verge of giving up on this quest we come around a new corner and saw lights and lots of them!!! We found it...we think. We decided if it's not the restaurant we're supposed to be at, we're going there anyway. We found a spot to park, walked back to the lights, up to the door that says "Entre" with an arrow pointing around the corner. We followed the path around the building to a small narrow alley way with another door that is closed and obviously not the entrance to the restaurant. We came upon another door that said something in French but we translated it to say "for deliveries" mainly because you can hear the kitchen clearly and we think it's the back door. We continued making a complete loop around the building without finding the proper entrance and end up back at the delivery door. I decided what the heck; the kitchen will at least be able to tell us how to get into this place! I knocked on the door...no answer, so I opened the door and see the bathrooms and the kitchen with the dining room around the corner. It turns out this was the front door to the restaurant! The restaurant is very small with beautiful decorations of white and silver with very soft lighting of mostly candles...this combination made it really intimate and cozy. Our server didn't speak English so she brought over another server who knew a few words and we went through the menu in a series of points, mimes, gestures and random words. The only trouble to this technique is that when we pointed to something on the menu to ask about it, they thought we were ordering it. After a few minutes, I realized we had just ordered about half the menu! We sufficiently canceled our previous "orders" and ended up with a delicious scallop entree and yummy beef entree. They were both great and we knew we were in for a treat when it came to the food and wine in Bordeaux!
After dinner, we headed back to our B&B, which is also a winery, to sit by the fire and play some cards. Our B&B also serves dinner, but you have to let them know if advance so we were planning to eat with them on Saturday night. When we returned Martin and Bruno were at the table with three other guests finishing dinner. We came in and sat by the fire with a glass of the Chateau de Crecy Red and played our favorite card game gin (Grandma will be glad to read this and know that her gin teaching skills have made it all the way to France!). When Martine brought dessert out she kindly invited us to the table to enjoy her homemade French apple dessert dish. I know, very technical, but I don't know the name of it...all I know is that it was wonderful and I've never had anything like it! The three other guests were three buddies from Italy on a guy’s trip for the weekend. As we all sat trying to communicate again with mimes, gestures and broken language Jon's French starts to come back slightly and makes things a bit easier. This first night was great fun, but still a bit difficult to fully get across what we were all saying.
Saturday morning we were greeted with an amazing breakfast of homemade croissants, chocolate croissants, fresh fruit, cured meats, French cheese and farm fresh eggs...We could get used to this! We fueled up for our day of exploring the Bordeaux country side. Martine gave us great suggestions on how to fill up our day! We headed to the small town of St. Emilion first and checked in with the tourist center to get an overview of the city. I must say here that we have been thoroughly impressed in all of our travels with the tourist centers; they have all been very helpful! January is the regions "off-season" so many of the wineries were closed, but there was still plenty to do and see. St. Emillion's history goes back to prehistoric times and the Romans planted vineyards here as early as the 2nd century, so you can imagine the history here. We went to two wine caves that were in the town, took a tour of each and walked around the various sites of the town. We continued our day through the endless hills and valleys of vineyards driving through the small towns and countryside. We did happen to see a winery that was open and stopped in for a visit. We had a small tasting of their red and purchased a bottle to take home. We stopped at a few more that looked like they might be open, but could not find anyone. We stopped in Creon to find a place for lunch and settled at a small creperie. The creperie was playing country oldies on the stereo and Jon loved it! The menu was in French and we asked the waitress a few questions and ordered what we thought was a small meat and cheese tray and a salad (we were saving room for a dessert crepe!). It turns out our pointing and asking questions method needs to not be used again because we got the three things we pointed to instead of the two we thought we ordered. Don't get me wrong they were good, but didn't leave any room for a dessert crepe...C'est la vie:)
We continued our drive through the Bordeaux countryside stopping off at a few more small towns. Around 5pm we start heading back to our B&B to freshen up and relax by the fire before dinner. Dinner was just the four of us, me, Jon, Martine and Bruno. Martine and Bruno made an amazing meal...celery soup (it doesn't sound like much, but I think it's the best soup I've ever tasted), scallops and fish with noodles, fresh baked bread (of course!), salad, cheese and another amazing dessert she called apple cake. Everything was spectacular and I can't wait to try out some French cooking at home! By this time Jon's French has really come back to him so we are able to communicate much better over dinner. Around dessert, our three Italian friends (Pino, Fancesco and Nico)returned from their dinner and joined us at the table. I started picking up on the Italian because it's so similar to Spanish and they were able to understand my Spanish. It was such a great evening making new friends. We thought it was really amazing we were all able to communicate speaking English, French, Italian and Spanish! It was truly a night to remember!
Sunday morning we woke to the same amazing breakfast! We drove to the city of Bordeaux and walked around to get a feel for that area. It was really a beautiful city with great history, architecture and views. We know we didn't give the city its proper time, but we really wanted to see the northern wine country of Bordeaux. We thought we'd squeeze it in before our plane left. We drove north of the city and toured around on our own, again all the wineries we closed being off season and a Sunday. However, we had a wonderful time in Bordeaux and the surrounding areas! The scenery was fantastic, the food and wine was amazing and the people were kind and helpful.
Here's a link to our pictures(you need to copy and paste the link to your browser):
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=8054604007/a=53561785_53561785/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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