Day 2 Village Life in Dordogne

Photos

Saturday, October 4, 2014

We had our most comfortable bed of the trip last night, so I guess that will make up for a lot here at Hotel Plaza Madeleine. It still only had a duvet and no top sheet. But no matter how high we move the thermostat it is still cold in here so we need the duvet anyway. It got down in the 40’sF here overnight so it seems really cold in the room. Breakfast buffet was nice. They had an egg boiling machine for soft to hardboiled eggs you could make and time yourself. Clay had to play with it but it isn’t clear he’ll do that more than once since he made a bit of a mess. Other than that it was a pretty standard spread. They had hot mini crepes on the steam table behind the beans. After I had yogurt, bacon and scrambled eggs I had some crepes with speculoos. Yummy! I still have not had a chocolate croissant though. I am trying to be good. 

We got our QuietVoxes and got out our earpieces from the other day and divided into 2 groups as we watched a pair of hot air balloons float by overhead. It was still chilly but you could feel that the sun was going to be blazing hot again. We had Bruno as our guide. He lives in a nearby village and owns a wine store here in Sarlat that is closed in the off season (not summer). We cannot imagine being here in summer when they claim they get over a million visitors. It would be much hotter and much more crowded and be miserable! We walked through all kinds of narrow passes and half arched corners and up ramps and stairs and down and around into places I would never have entered without a guide. I just would have thought they were private spaces and not public walkways! Bruno showed us the 2 fountains, or springs, that brought the first documented residents, monks, to settle here. Evidently this group of monks originally lived on the Dordogne River somewhere nearby and when the Vikings were invading up the rivers they took their relics of Saint Sacredos and moved away from the river and when they found the first spring in a kind of natural basin, they stopped and started building. Because of the holy relics they were a pilgrimage site and wealthy and attracted other wealthy people and merchants and soon had a fortified medieval city. Sarlat had many ups and downs and was a forbidden locked city at a few times due to different plagues. But, Sarlat always rebounded but never thrived again right up to the 1960’s. Bruno remembered coming to Sarlat as a boy in the summer before there were any utilities like sewage lines. He said it was truly a miserable experience. He says the government of France offered its old cities federal money during the 1970’s to modernize their infrastructure and stabilize their heritage architecture and that Sarlat was one of the first in line and got a lot of money for work that continues to this day. 

He left us about 11am in the Cathedral of Saint Sacredos. He offered to guide anyone who wanted back to the hotel but we decided to stay. I had seen a glass elevator and people up at the top of an old church bell tower and wanted to go up for an overview. We wandered until we found it again and there was a 20 minute wait to go up. We decided that would rush us to get back to the hotel for 12:30pm lunch and said we’d come back. It was closed for lunch from noon to 2pm. We got back right at 2pm and they told us it was currently closed because there were a bunch of bees up there and they were waiting for the fire department to go up and tell them it was safe. We went about an hour later as the firemen were leaving and they told us that no it was not safe and they were closed for the rest of the day, at least. Oh well. It seems that we walked and wandered all over the small town at least twice. You can’t get truly lost because there is just one main street, but with all the little alleys, lanes and twists and turns and different levels it is hard to find your way directly to or from the same place twice. The market that we had the afternoon free for was packing up and leaving town as we left lunch. So, right now I fail to see the difference between the Wednesday morning market and the Saturday all day market. (Spoiler: Saturday's market covers more Sarlat real estate than Wednesday's.)

Lunch was, by the way, much better than dinner last night according to everyone at our table. How weird is that? I mean I knew mine was better because I actually ate it. We all discussed that the supposed mushroom sauce that I was worried about had no mushrooms in it or that we could taste and it just tasted like a brown chicken gravy. It was fine. Everybody was still all up in knots about that duck gizzard salad though!

We finally figured out after lunch that our room was not being serviced because we had not put out a sign asking for service even though the maids had seen us heading out this morning for the tour. We hope that was the problem anyway. After lunch we put out the sign in front of a maid and made a point of speaking to her as we did it. When we got back the bed was made. We took a nap! 

At lunch Monika handed out tomorrow’s itineraries. We have an early start and what looks like a long strenuous day. Buffet breakfast is from 7 to 8am. At 8:10am we depart for Rocamadour. Approximately a 1 hour drive with a photo stop at Hospitalet. We will have guided tour of Rocamadour. The movie Timeline set in this area of France is one of the reasons I wanted to come on this trip even though I know the film was not shot here! We have an advisory that there are 216 steps to go up and down between the chapel of Rocamadour and the village or we can pay to take elevators. We’ll see. We have lunch from noon to 1:30pm at the restaurant Hotel du Chateau. At 1:30pm we drive back to Sarlat via Souillac to visit 12^th century Ste. Marie’s church. After that is another 30 minutes driving back to Sarlat.

We have the cheese and wine welcome reception from 6:30 to 7:30pm at the hotel and we are on our own for dinner. We have 2 spots in easy walking distance picked out for dinner if we still feel like a big meal after 7:30pm. Monika advised reservations, but we didn’t want to lock ourselves in by holding a table we might not want later. So, we’ll see what happens and hope we made a good decision. 

There is nothing until dinner after that so I assume we have the afternoon free in Sarlat again. It is a charming and beautiful little village, but it is very touristy with lots of gourmet and other shops and lots of cafes and restaurants. I guess I’m saying that if you are aren’t eating or shopping that you don’t need that much time here! Dinner tomorrow is at 7:30pm at the restaurant Le Quatre Saisons. I don’t remember seeing that one today! The itinerary says we’ll meet in the lobby at 7:25pm to walk there. So, it must be close.

So, we spent about 45 minutes at the wine & cheese welcome reception. It was held in the same room where we had dinner last night and breakfast this morning. I assume it is the hotel’s former restaurant. We went through a buffet style line and had a choice of 2 white and 3 red wines. They were all local. There were 5 cheeses, again all local. We didn’t make any choices there to start as they were fixing small plates with a sample of each for us and we all just took what was offered and went back for more of our favorites if we wanted. They had some sliced white or whole grain breads and some walnuts as well as ice and water. Some apple slices or other fruits or vegetables would have made it perfect. We liked everything except maybe the very salty sheep’s milk Roquefort. I had asked Monika earlier about if she thought we could eat without reservations tonight and she didn’t advise it. I still did not make a reservation, but she got the phone number of Les Tulipes and told me that she would call during this reception if we decided then that we wanted to go. So she could check whether we should walk down there. At 7:15pm Clay and I decided not to make a meal of wine and cheese and go eat crepes. I went and asked Monika and she offered to make an 8pm reservation. I asked her to shoot for 7:35 or 7:45pm instead. She said you’d need to leave now. OK. She came back and said we had a reservation under Burch for 7:35pm and we got my purse and my blazer from the room and set off. Clay had already taken his Irish wool blazer back to the room after he got his wine and plate of cheese. There were about 50% of men with and without jackets and he said it was too hot in there for him. We should have ignored the Gohagan packing list and dress codes and come as we wanted like everyone else! 

We really liked Les Tulipes and it was very reasonably priced. I ordered steak frites with green peppercorn sauce and Clay ordered a ham and cheese crepe. These are Dutch-style pancakes. We loved those things in Amsterdam, so we were looking forward to this ever since Monika pointed the place out on our way into Sarlat. Monika is Dutch. The steak was cooked well done, no problem, but it was a bit stringy and tough. It was very thin cut so it was still chewable though. We each ate half and then swapped plates so we each had some. For dessert, Clay ordered 6 butter and sugar poffertjes and I ordered a honey crepe. I ate one of his poffertjes and didn’t love it. He liked them and finished them, then he ate about half my honey crepe. It was not very sweet and we didn’t know if it was a quality of the local honey (which they were selling tons of at the market today) or because they just didn’t put much on it. Clay sat with a view of the crepe chef and thoroughly enjoyed his evening. We each had a glass of the white Bergerac local wine which we have also been drinking at the hotel and we like a lot. (I never did get a look at a label, so can't tell you the winery or look for it at home.) We finished up about 9pm and this is Clay’s latest night out in a long time! 

Well, we have an early start tomorrow so good night.

Photos

Day 1 Villlage Life in Dordogne

Photos

Friday, October 3, 2014

We went down to breakfast about 7am again. The alarm actually went off this morning. We put our bags out after breakfast and went down and checked out. We walked down to the closest Baillardran for our favorite macarons for later and then over to the Public Gardens and Botanical Garden. We had a quick walk around and then back. I had to stop at Grand Hommes for a bathroom break on the way over. I think yesterday’s andouillette is disagreeing with me. I am glad I didn’t eat very much of it. Clay took photos while I was indisposed. We also watched at Baillardran as they were making canelés. The batter was very thin, like pancake batter. Not what I was expecting. The canelés had a texture like a fruitcake but without the fruit. I would have sworn they were a heavy batter cake that had been soaked, but I was wrong. We stayed close to the lobby bathrooms for the next hour as we waited to load the bus and leave. We gained 2 more to our party overnight and everyone was on the bus early and we left a little before 11am. 

We got out to the airport a little before the 11:35am flight we were to meet. Monika said 2 women had flown in about 9 am but the other 10 were on the 11:35am arrival. It seems most of our group of 34 booked flights through Gohagan and they had heavily preferred to use Air France. Sadly, AF have been on strike. So, most of the people got here with altered schedules or unhappy ones like 2 connections, one in the US and one in Amsterdam or Paris instead of direct flights from their home airports to Europe. We solved that by booking our flights ourselves. I suppose we paid more, but it was absolutely worth it for the easier and more convenient schedule. Anyway, all the flights were on time and no lost luggage so we were on the road again ahead of schedule. We were each provided with a sack lunch to eat on the bus. We had a choice of either a chicken sandwich or a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. We went in the airport and bought a Coke Zero to share and then we had our 6 macarons. Speculoos was still our favorite.

As we drove across the Garonne River to leave Bordeaux, we could see a white cruise ship with a blue smokestack docked near old town. So, Veronique was right and there was a cruise ship in town today. Clay thought she just made a mistake since he couldn’t find it online, but her name badge had an image of a cruise ship on a blue wave on it and I figured she was guiding a cruise tour and knew what she was talking about. As it turns out, we didn’t really have time to walk all the way down there this morning anyway because of my intestinal distress, so it didn’t matter.

We had a rest stop at a truck stop kind of place outside Perigueux at about the 2 hour mark. We were there for 30 minutes which gave everyone time to use the restrooms and get some snacks. We left at 2:26pm and drove on a 2-lane winding road through troglodyte and Cro-Magnon territory. If I had not been so car sick by then I am sure it would have been fascinating to see all the carved out cliffs. But we were driving through as quickly as possible. I believe I understood Monica to say we would be back in the area we drove through to visit the Pre-History museum near where the Cro-Magnon discoveries were made so hopefully we will get a better look at the historic and more current cliff dwellings. Evidently, troglodyte is used locally to refer to any cave dwelling or cave dweller, pre-historic or modern.

We got to the Hotel Plaza Madeleine about 3:30pm which I guess was about an hour to an hour and a half earlier than normal for this tour. So we were all run through the bar and asked to take a seat with a complimentary drink without a name that consisted of orange juice, Cointreau and sparkling wine. A French Mimosa I guess. Then they passed around trays of finger snacks. They eat some local specialties here in Perigord Noir. They are walnuts, duck, goose, foie gras, and mushrooms and truffles. Now I won’t eat any of that, so it seems like I will have some hungry days. Added to the fact that while we fight jet lag we have been ingesting far too much caffeine and sugar to keep going, I am having trouble keeping on an even keel and just keep crashing. So, while Clay just keeps pushing Coke Zero, coffee and candy and cookies I keep fighting back. But, you also have to eat what you can find and those are the things that are readily available. Anyway, we still didn’t get our room keys and into our rooms until close to 4pm, our scheduled arrival time.

We have the afternoon free. We got up to our room and it is sadly not the equal of the Hotel Burdigala and we have been spoiled. There is little storage space for a 7-night stay and no luggage stands either. I don’t know what they thought you would do with your clothes. The only place you can set and open a single small suitcase is also the only place you can hang shirts, so you can’t do both. There are 2 very small drawers. There are 12 hangers of the type that are fixed to the rod, so you can’t move them around. There are 4 hangers fixed to the longer hanging space, but again if you store a suitcase there, you can't hang anything long. There is no cabinet or vanity in the bathroom, the sink just hangs off the wall and there is no shelf of any kind on which to place your things. Again, I don’t know what the thinking was in using this as your base for 7 nights. The room might be fine for an overnight stay but it is not suited to a 7-night stay. The worst was that our navy blue tiled bathroom floor was littered with long blonde hairs. I don’t even want to think about what's on the striped room carpet! Actually, this is the first carpeted hotel room we have had since arriving in Europe. Lastly, Plaza Madeleine provides no laundry service. Monika said she had a provider nearby that would deliver to the hotel on a more or less same day basis. But still it is a 7-night stay. Clay only packed half the clothes he needed with plans to hand laundry and hang to dry socks, underwear and shirts past the mid-point since we are in one room for a week. He can't do that without anywhere to hang clothes at all or any moveable hangers or a shower rod. I really only wanted an iron and ironing board, but it is not to be.

There was a menu on our little desk when we got in. It contains all our included meals here at Plaza Madeleine. Monika was explaining something on the bus about since 6 years ago when the current owners of Plaza Madeleine bought it that they no longer run a restaurant, but have our tour meals catered when they have to. Gohagan had called the house about 3 weeks prior to departure to confirm that I was still on a low-sodium, no fish diet. I assured them that I was. Monika has not asked me about it and it hasn’t come up because the pre-tour only included breakfast buffets. After she gave us the list of local specialties and the no restaurant or kitchen spiel I was a little worried. Which brings us to the menus. After failing to find a way to settle in the room, I sat down and read Clay the menu. He laughed his butt off and it might have been funny to him, but I was ready to weep. Our free time here has been wasted. Since all we had was a map without any information about attractions within walking distance I am not going to sweat it. Our pre-trip documents asked men to bring a jacket for the welcome dinner. We had assumed that was tonight at 7pm, but Monika did not specify dressing for dinner at 7pm. We were already trying to imagine how the 10 new arrivals must be feeling after traveling overnight and all day. Clay asked Monika if the welcome was considered tonight or the cheese tasting reception that she had mentioned tomorrow evening. She said the welcome reception was tomorrow. We’ll see.

The current owners at the same time they closed the restaurant, added a spa and swimming pool. Supposedly for the stars. But what kind of 4-star hotel has no restaurant? Has no laundry or pressing facilities but will refer you to an outside source? And let me rant on the shower over tub. Like Hotel Burdigala’s there is a sheet of glass but no shower curtain. So the back half is open air. The similarities end there. The Burdigala’s shower was an inch or so lip to step over to get in and out and about 7 feet by 3 .5 feet I am guessing. So, the glass wall was at least 5 feet and it came to a sealed seam with the floor. Very little water could escape. Here there is a very deep and raised bathtub. I mean that when you step out of the tub, the floor of the tub is at least a half foot higher than the bathroom floor. There are no grab bars or handholds and when you step out that blue floor is very wet and slippery. The bottom of the tub is slippery too. The glass piece over the front part of the tub is perhaps 3 to 3.5 feet wide and swings and does not touch the tub. There is no way to keep the water inside. It splashes out the far end because the piece is too short, it runs down to the gap at the bottom and onto the floor or just splashes through the gap. It is inconvenient and hazardous. Badly designed. The tiles on the tub surround below the gap are loose and/or missing so this is certainly a known problem.

Here are the menus. Dinner tonight. First course, duck gizzards and smoked duck on a mixed green salad. Main course, salmon in dill and zucchini with goat-cheese topping. Dessert is sabayon with red fruits and sauce. Saturday lunch. First course is chicken breast in mushroom cream dip and potatoes with parsley. Dessert is apple pie. Monday lunch is vegetable quiche and green salad. Dessert is fruits sorbet with whipped cream. Thursday dinner. First course is foie gras sautéed with rosemary and honey sauce.  Main course is sea scallops in white lemon sauce with julienne vegetables. Hot goat cheese and green salad. Dessert is crème brulee.

Since all I would eat tonight was zucchini, goat cheese and sabayon, we went downstairs to ask Monika if she had gotten my diet advisory in advance. She assured me that she had and no problem. She explained they had just been discussing it and that “seafood” in France was accepted to be defined as shrimp or lobster, or shellfish, so there were no conflicts for me. Clay explained that in the US, and in fact in the world at large, no seafood or no fish means no fish, fresh or salt water. She said so you won’t eat salmon. No. But, it is not shellfish. It lives in the sea, hence seafood. But, I had stated no fish and by my definition that means “I won’t eat anything that swims or lives in water. So, all fish, fresh or sea water and shellfish and ducks, geese, any and all water fowl.” She was in shock. She told me I couldn’t eat tonight’s menu at all. No shit. The owners and staff and she all got in a tizzy and tried to call the caterer before they left for here. From where, I don’t know but it was at least 2 hours before dinner will be served. So we will see. The guy in charge asked Monika something and she asked me in English if I ate red meat. She and I had earlier discussed the good steak Clay & I ate last night, so yes. I replied that I would eat red meat if it was cooked well-done. She told him something and asked me again and I again replied yes I eat red meat if it is cooked well done. I twice emphasized if well done. You might be imagining that somehow, like the meaning of "fish" that "well done" did not translate. You might be right, which is ridiculous since I ate a perfectly butterflied and well done steak last night. So, it isn't a French thing.



Clay and I walked down to Carrefour market and got me a couple of yogurts, so hopefully if I end up skipping meals I’ll still have some protein. (We do have a minibar in the room with items for sale, but we are just using it for our stuff too.) As we walked back to put the yogurts in the fridge I pointed out to Clay that there were no spoons in the market (it wasn’t a deli/takeout kind of market) and it wasn’t likely I could get one at Plaza Madeleine without a restaurant but only catered food for our tour group. Clay said, use the one from your coffee in the room. There is no in room coffee or even a place for it here! Clay said, ask for one in the hotel. Our food is being catered, remember, the owners shut down the restaurant. We got back to the room and Clay sat. I had planned to go out and see Sarlat and figure out what we’d like to do here, but he acted like what was I doing. So, OK, I sat here and started typing up the day’s events. He laid on the bed. Then he got up and told me that he was going out to find ice cream to get a plastic spoon for my yogurt. OK, I was not invited. When he came back, he said Sarlat was charming and scenic and mostly restaurants and coffee, snack and ice cream shops. He said he had a hard time choosing where and what to order for his ice cream. Honestly, I’m surprised he limited himself. He brought me back a little green plastic spade. I tried to find a place to hide it so it wouldn’t get cleaned away. There was not a drawer anywhere to hide it in this table or either bed side table. I put it inside the fridge atop the yogurt. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow what Plaza Madeleine’s policy is on guest use of their minifridges. There is an entire page of rules about what trash we are allowed to place in which trashcan in which room and what not to put in the trashcans. So…

Dinner is included tonight as discussed above. It is at 7pm. I changed because our pre-trip documents spell out 2 different dress codes for day and evening. I figure if we are independent then we can dress to please ourselves. Clay did not change. Because. We were all down there before 7pm. Monika had specifically requested that everyone be early or on time but not late because the caterer would be ready to serve on time, but would not begin service until the entire party was seated and ready to be served. So when they unlocked the door to the dining room I think we were all there. We were sharing the small hall space between the tiny lobby and the stairs/elevator with a bus load of Asian people who had just unloaded a tour bus out front. The servers brought a brown paper sign and stood it beside my water glass and told me it was so they would know where to bring special diet. I was the only one! Then they tried to serve me both duck and salmon while Clay and our dining companion waved them off. They brought me a big bowl of weeds and tomato wedges for first course. I gave it to Clay. He really liked the duck gizzard salad and he liked the tomatoes too. Next they brought me a large piece of bleeding and very rare beef. Clay asked me to cut it to make sure it was really rare. That wasn't necessary, it really was very rare. I waited a bit to see if someone would like to cook it, but that didn’t happen. I ate the little zucchini and goat cheese quiche on the side. That and the dessert I ate were all I’d have eaten without the special treatment anyway, so it was certainly not worth the bother for me. I hope it wasn’t all that much bother for them. They didn’t come to bus our table and finally our dining companion told the woman in French that we were finished. She wanted to cook my steak now. I refused, of course. I don’t care that much about food anyway and I certainly don’t want to eat at all if there is going to be any grief involved. We all really liked the zabaglione. Clay and I both liked the local white wine they too freely poured with dinner. I never did see the label, so I can’t make a recommendation or look for it again. Sorry. They also poured red but we didn’t have any. For some reason, Clay only has photos of our first course. Sorry.

At dinner, Monika passed out 3 sheets of paper. A guide to foie gras, a map with some recommended restaurants and tomorrow's itinerary. We won’t eat at any of the restaurants or buy/cook/serve foie gras so I’ll skip to the itinerary. Breakfast buffet in the dining room between 7 and 9:30am. Walking tour of Sarlat splitting into 2 groups with 2 guides at 9:30am and ending at 11:30am. It will end at the Saturday market so we can stay and enjoy it or just walk back to the hotel.

Lunch is at the hotel at 12:30pm. See menu above.

Afternoon is free to enjoy the Sarlat Saturday market.

6:30pm to 7:30pm is the welcome reception at the hotel. (This is the jacket requested event of the tour.)

7:30pm is dinner on your own.

When we got back to the room, our left behind key had been removed from the slot turning off our power. However, there had not been a turndown service while they were doing that and dropping some paper on the bed. The paper was a sealed envelope with an odd note from Ken Tedesco (No, we do not know who that is.) He thanked us for choosing Tulane Travel though. OK. Separately was a card stuck on a half sheet of paper. This was from the Plaza Bar (which we assume is downstairs here at the hotel) describing their wine serving system and to ask the barman for assistance. The card has Plaza Bar and our names on one side and on the other it says “Please return to the barman or to the front desk once it is empty”. We are assuming this means someone with Tulane Alumni Travel is buying us a glass of wine. We’ll have to let you know how that goes. OK, we went down to check and there was €20 on the card. You put the card in a slot on a round machine and take a glass off the top. Then, you select one of maybe 10-12 white or red wines. There are 3 sizes of pours which are about 2 oz., 3 oz., and 4 oz. The smallest size pour varied from €3 to €6.

Photos

Day 2 Bordeaux pre-tour

Photos

Thursday, October 2, 2014

The bed was hard but it was roomy and Clay took the square pillows and I had 2 rectangular pillows so it wasn’t too bad. The room was comfortable and quiet until 5am when the trash pickup happened below our window. The bed is made up with a duvet and no top sheet so Clay struggled some with that I think. I know I did.

We were up before the alarm went off at 6am. We were down for breakfast shortly after it opened at 7am and we were not first. It looks like there are 20 people on this pre-tour. Breakfast was a combination of order and/or buffet. We both stuck with the buffet. I had raspberries, blackberries, a little glass jar of peach yogurt and a cold crepe with maple syrup and coffee. I also had a cup of coffee from the Nespresso machine in the room. Both cups tasted surprisingly the same which is to say, very good. Clay had a lot of different items off the buffet. He had a canele Bordelaise. They are a local Gironde treat that we had seen described and for sale yesterday but never tried. It was like a small sweet soaked cake of some kind. The description we read said orange blossom water, but it didn’t taste orangey, just sweet. Clay really liked it. It was interesting. They also had them out by the front desk yesterday afternoon, but we didn't realized what they were and didn't try them then.

At 9am we boarded the bus for the start of our touring day with local guide, Veronique. I don’t know if I said our Program Director is Monika. We did an overview on the bus of the old town area. Then we got out and walked to and around the St. Andre Cathedral and went inside. Eleanor of Aquitaine was married here! I think that was in the 12^th century?! We walked over to Place Gambetta from there and reboarded the bus. We then drove around on the other of side of old town for a while, then got out and walked to Grand Hommes Shopping Center for a “technical stop” or peepee break. From there we walked down to the Grand Theatre and got back on the bus.

It was about 11:30am now and we headed across the Garonne River. Veronique told us a cruise ship is expected to dock near old town on the river tomorrow. We’d like to see that! I checked the schedule and RSSC Voyager and Oceania Nautica will dock here at 6:45am but on the 4^th, not the 3rd. (There was a cruise ship docked there on the morning of the 3rd, but we didn't get a good enough view of it to identify it.) I had hoped we had a plan for our free morning tomorrow. Clay got a blister today and doesn’t want to walk anymore, I think. We’ll see, I have some Band-Aids he can use but I don’t have much else to help him. He decided last week on Monday that he needed a new pair of shoes to wear on this trip and it would be the only shoes he would bring. We bought them on Tuesday and he has been wearing them since Monday of this week. Oh, well. I guess if it gets bad enough there are plenty of pharmacies and shoe stores around and he’ll have to decide what to do. Back to the day’s events!

It was about an hour drive to St. Emilion. It was on a limestone promontory in the middle of miles of vineyards, cornfields and sunflower fields. It was impressive. Monika and Veronique guided us from the bus up and through the main street to Place Clocher which had a landmark clock tower on the edge of cliff.

Here is where they turned us loose for lunch and free time on our own. I voted to get sandwiches and St. Emilion macarons and have a picnic and sightsee. Clay ignored me and chose to sit at Chez Germaine on the Place under the tower. He ordered moules frites and we had much difficulty ordering me one of the 3 lunch specials on the sign boards they had sitting on either side of their umbrella-shaded tables. We thought we were ordering a sausage and French fries with a goat cheese salad and dessert for €16.50. (That is actually what we did order, it was just not a nice sausage, but a big disgusting one. In other words, it was not an ordering problem!) We both had a glass of white Bordeaux wine. Anyway, Clay loved his big pot of chorizo moules. I don’t think either of us loved the fries, too thick. The goat cheese salad was alright, but the sausage was too rustic. Meaning too fibrously part-y. It didn’t even taste like pork. It grossed Clay out, so that is saying something. So, we have learned that ette added to a word we think we know does not mean a small version of the known word. It means a nasty version of it! The dessert tasted like a panna cotta with some grape preserves over the top. We both liked it OK. The wine was not great as it got stronger the longer we sat there. We sat there a very long time. We wound up only having about 20 minutes to sightsee after our €50 lunch. So we basically had to stay on the same street for our free sightseeing time.

We went through the cloisters and the parish church from the 12^th to 15^th centuries. We walked down to a macaron shop and bought a small box (24!) of St. Emilion macarons. They are only almond flavor and a single cookie, not a sandwich. Also, we noticed all the shops selling them were selling them the same way, boxed with the cookies stuck on perforated sheets of paper like dot candies! Weird. They were very good though and we ate them all before we got back to Bordeaux. We went into the Tourism Office and I bought a tea towel with cross-stitch that looks like the Bordeaux apron we bought at the tourism office here in Bordeaux. Clay got a t-shirt.

At 2:40pm we met back up with Veronique and Monika to tour the monolithic church. There was a whole underground complex! We started in the Hermitage cave home of St. Emilion from I think the 8^th century or earlier. Then the 8^th century Trinity Chapel and finally the big 12^th to 16^th century underground church. Veronique said there is a bigger church like this in Ethiopia, but she only knows of 3 of these monolithic churches and 2 of them are in France. Weird. It was fascinating though. It made me feel a little dizzy and nauseous underground but that may have been my lunch and the wine.

About 3:45pm, we walked back through St. Emilion and got back on the bus for the short ride to Chateau Soutard. It is supposed to be one of the oldest wineries in the region. It was a beautiful place. We saw Merlot about a week from being handpicked and got to pick and taste one grape each. They were good. Then we walked through all the process in the buildings with steel vats and wood vats and wood barrels and finally bottles. Then we took a large glass elevator down to the tasting room. We tasted 2 reds and while we prefer white wines we do actually like some reds. Neither of us thought either of the very expensive reds we tasted were drinkable! I thought the 1^st one tasted just like cherry Robitussin (cough syrup). I told Clay and he nearly choked because he had a mouthful and that is exactly what it tasted like. There’s no accounting for taste though because after we walked back upstairs through the shop several people bought bottles. I bought a souvenir bottle stopper.

About 5pm we got back on the bus and started the hour drive back to Bordeaux. Monika made a very welcome 2^nd pass through the bus with bottles of cold water. It has been surprisingly warm and sunny here. It is not a humid heat and in the breeze and shade it can be quite comfortable, but I have the sunburn to show for it. We got back to the Hotel Burdigala about 6pm. We came in and killed some time to go back out for dinner after 7pm tonight.

Our goal was the Bordelaise specialty steak frites. We wound up at Le Bistro Regent which was one of the doner shop guy’s recommendations because I knew where it was and how to get there. Plus, I could find their website and we could eat a salad, fries and steak for €12.90 each. Cheaper than lunch! We set off walking about 6:55pm and when we got there we found it open. We went in and were seated by the front window. It was quite good. They had English language menus and the waitress spoke English, so that was a big help. I got my steak well done (it was butterflied) so I was a happy camper. Their menu said they had matchstick fries and they weren’t that thin but they were good, not thick and mushy (rustic!) like the ones at lunch. It was good and affordable. Thumbs up! 

We set off walking towards the river and the water mirror after dinner and after dark. We had skipped dessert at the restaurant hoping to find a chocolate or sweet shop open. We walked by a bunch of closed ones but finally near the Grand Theatre rediscovered the one Clay had been trying to rediscover. They were sold by the gram at €5. Clay thought this would be cheaper than the €1.35 each we had been paying. It was but, we did not love them. I thought even with the price difference that I would go without before eating them again. The texture of the cookies was not as nice and the texture and flavor of the filling was jelly-like and unnatural. Clay did not feel as strongly as I did but did agree that the best ones had been at Baillardran. And the best of those was the Speculoos. We rediscovered the original shop where we got that cookie and it was right past the Dijeaux gate. I expect we’ll be back tomorrow when it is open before we leave Bordeaux.

We did see the lights reflected in the water mirror after dark and it was just as spectacular as promised. We were glad we made the effort. After that we walked back to the benches on the Bourse and ate our disappointing macarons and then walked back to the room and now it is time for bed.

Tomorrow we have buffet breakfast again between 7 to 10am. Bags out by 10am. On the bus for departure by 11am. We will drive to the Bordeaux airport to pick up the rest of the tour group who did not opt for the pre-tour package and drive to Sarlat-la-Caneda. We will spend the rest of the time there at the Hotel la Madeleine. I hope it is as nice and conveniently located as this hotel is! We should arrive by 4 to 4:30pm and have the afternoon free to wander. At 7pm we are supposed to have a dressy welcome dinner at the hotel. We feel bad for all those people we are picking up at the airport! If they have flown from the US overnight and have to get dressed for a 7pm dinner after traveling all night and all day, well I couldn’t do it!

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Day 1 Bordeaux pre-tour

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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The room was quite chilly and the bed very hard last night. In addition being a block from Victoria Station, it seemed that we could feel the clack clack of trains coming or going about every 15 minutes. In all, it did not make for a good night’s sleep even though we both worked at it long and hard. Clay woke me with the bathroom light at 2:58am. I don’t know if he was getting up then or not, but I went ahead and got up since I was awake. I had a cup of instant coffee that was provided in the room and showered and washed my hair, got dressed and we finished packing up. We left the room about 4am. We went down to the lobby and turned in the keycard and checked out.

We walked straight to Victoria Station and through the open and unmanned turnstiles to the Gatwick Express turnstiles and boarded the train. I was worried because I had read that the tickets needed to be validated somehow. I took the tickets and went to the main turnstiles at the Underground entrance to Victoria Station where the turnstiles were working, manned and with a line of passengers on the other side. I told the guy working there where we had entered and how and he was surprised. I asked him if he could scan the tickets now and he said no, just show them to whoever is working the turnstiles at the Gatwick end. Well, the turnstiles at Gatwick were open and unmanned as well, so while we paid to ride no one checked.

We followed signs to go way out of our way before finally getting to security at Gatwick Airport. Since we weren’t checking luggage, we could have just gone straight there but we followed the signs. We were very early so there was no rush. We did not have TSA pre check here though! So we got in a pretty big line and it was moving pretty well because they had a lot of screener lines open. They were not removing shoes unless you set off the metal detectors, so that helped. Plus they put everything that goes through the x-ray machine in a plastic tub including 22’ rolling suitcases and they roll them full on the top level of the rollers/belts and push them back to the front on the bottom level so that keeps things moving nicely too. It was almost as painless as getting through RDU on Monday.

We went into a large shopping/dining/holding area past security. Clay wanted breakfast and we had not seen anything on the way till now. We ate at Red Lion. I had Eggs Benedict and Clay had the Large Breakfast. It was good. We thought we might be able to kill an hour there, but it was not to be. Soon we were out roaming again. They only post the gate number for the flights about 30 minutes before they want to board them, so you have 10 minutes to get to the gate and 20 minutes to load the plane. They don’t like people milling around the gates in Canada or the UK it seems, not like in the US.


The flight was pretty bumpy but start but smoothed out, which was good because on a 1 hour flight BA served breakfast and beverages. It was a cold breakfast but still. On a 1 hour flight in the US, they probably wouldn’t even serve a beverage! It was an orange juice, a croissant with a slice of white cheese in it, and a cup of strawberry/banana bircher muesli. It was like a cold cup of thick oatmeal, strawberry flavored. It was not like anything I ever had before but I liked it. Clay refused his because he said he just ate. So did I, but you don’t ever know when traveling how long (or how soon) your next opportunity for food might come. He drank my juice, and ate half the slice of cheese. I had the yogurt/muesli and the other half of the slice of cheese. We each had 3 ice cubes and a small cup of Coke Zero. The flight landed on time. It was a 3/3 seating arrangement which is never a happy time. It was also regular coach class which meant knees touching the seat in front of you. We’ve been spoiled by the premium economy class of American that we’ve been consistently using for the past couple of years. But, it was only a 1 hour flight!

Our documents from Gohagan said that the airport transfer was one bus at 12:35pm. They had also called and spoken to us and they were firm about those airport transfers with no flexibility. So, we when on through Immigration and into baggage claim and sat down and put on our Gohagan name tags and luggage tags and read again where to go (Terminal B, the other one!) to meet the rep for the transfer. It was about 10 am and we thought we had 2 hours to kill. There was no re-entry to the area we were in and we didn’t want to leave until we were sure where to go next. Clay needed a bathroom and there were none in baggage claim Terminal A, so we were the last people to leave after all the luggage had been picked up from an Amsterdam flight and ours. Our tour director for the next week, Monika, was right outside the door going nuts. She had our flight information and was holding a bus for us! She told me if I ever do this again to come right out because probably no guide or tour director is going to leave you at the airport for 2 hours. I assured her that was exactly what Gohagan had promised me. Anyway, she had 2 on an earlier flight on the bus and picked up 2 from the Amsterdam flight that had landed shortly before us and then she had us. She said that everyone else on the pre-program was arriving on a 1:15pm flight and that was why she had scrapped Gohagan’s plan. Because the bulk of the guests would arrive too late for the bus and 6 would have a 2+hour wait and she didn’t consider any of that reasonable.  We had received 2 vouchers for transfers to and from the airport for each of us. No one collected our transfer voucher slips.

We had about a 20 minute bus ride into Bordeaux. We are staying just outside (a 10 minute walk) of the old city center at the Burdigala Hotel. It is unremarkable outside but our room, 315, is really beautiful and good sized and nice. There is complimentary coffee, tea and 2 small bottles of water. There is a toilet on one side of the entry hall and a sink/shower on the other. That is different. It is a huge shower, unlike the Comfort Inn’s! Clay tells me the bed is just as hard. Both have the keycard required to keep the power on but here we got 2 cards so we can leave things plugged in and charging plus the AC running when we are out.

Monika left us because she had more people to collect until she brought them back after 2pm. We did not want to hang around to hear from her and get a map so we asked the guy that checked us in and he was quite helpful. What we never asked and he and Monika never offered was that the restaurants pretty much stop serving about 4 to 4:30pm and they don’t open for dinner until after 7 or 7:30pm.

We had started out walking at 12:30pm. We were hoping to last until 5 or 5:30pm and get dinner and try to be at the water mirror on the riverfront to see the lights at night per the hotel guy’s recommendation. We weren’t sure that we could make it to 7:45pm which is official sunset here tonight, but we were going to try to move dinner back an hour or two tonight to try to get on the right time zone. Especially since we usually dine early and in Europe they seem to dine late. Anyway, that plan failed profoundly due to the restaurant hours and we should probably have anticipated that. But, we didn't! Clay had been looking forward to eating dinner here, I am not sure what he wanted other than part of my steak frites. Maybe tomorrow. We snacked so much to keep going all afternoon that when we finally got to the ham and cheese sandwiches we carried back in the hotel room, we couldn’t even finish them. We had a lot of sodas and junk food all day today.

The macarons here were even better than the Sprungli ones Clay got in Luxembourg. We paid €1 or €1.35 a piece for them. They were good, but I don’t know if they were that good. The last place we bought them and they wrapped them up in box like a present! (They were not as tasty though!)  Baillardran, the €1.35 place, just dropped them in a brown paper sack! We tried a lot of flavors but our favorite was the very first speculoos macaron we found! We did see macarons in one shop across from the Grand Theatre that sold them by weight, equaling under €1 a piece but we didn't buy any there.

We walked over most of the pedestrian street parts of old town and saw a huge police presence with an equal number of some kind of demonstrators outside St. Andre Cathedral and bell tower. That was a circled item on the map the hotel guy gave us but it was locked up and we could only dodge police and demonstrators walking around the outside. (The good news is that I think we get to tour it tomorrow as part of our guided city tour before the trip to St. Emilion.) Anyway after that we headed in the opposite direction to escape what looked to be inevitable trouble and the noise of it anyway.

We stopped and sat in a doner place. They used an electric hand tool to shave off lamb or chicken. They looked identical. Clay was chatting up the guy behind the counter because it reminded him of shwarmas in Libya. The guy gave us some restaurant suggestions which we were unable to use today. We only found 2 of the places he recommended and both were near the Grand Theatre. Anyway, the guy wound up sticking some of his shaved meat on a toothpick and handing it to Clay. He was going to make me one, but I waved him off. Clay insisted I try his and he told me it was chicken. It was obviously not and I tasted it and said so, that was when the doner guy said one was lamb and one was chicken. Lamb, the other white meat. We shared a chicken and cheese panini and fries. It was good and was a chicken breast and not the doner meat as I saw it being made, Clay says not that it was doner shavings. 

We walked all the way down to the waterfront along the Garonne River to see the water mirror in daylight and figure out if we wanted to be down there at nightfall. When we got there we noticed a little cart. We thought it might be ice cream, but it was oysters! Who knew? It was a guy shucking and selling raw farm-raised oysters by the half dozen. Clay had to have some. They were small and salty and he liked them. They were farmed in the Arcachon Basin of the Garonne River. The Arcachon is to France as the Chesapeake Bay is to the USA, I think.  The Garonne is joined to the Dordogne, which is where we are headed. The Garonne is navigable by ocean cruise ships as far as Bordeaux and the Arcachone Bay has huge tides that reverse the flow of the Garonne at high tides.

We used a public toilette that was a large oval kiosk on the street. I went first. It turns out you have to let a cleaning cycle happen between the person before you and you. That was not clear to me and there were 2 men waiting behind me and both said NON when I walked in behind the guy who was already in there. But, the door closed behind me and immediately reopened and the first guy behind me in line waved & pulled me out. He pulled me around to the pointy part of the oval to show me that it said in French, of course, to please wait while it lavaged. OK! The 2 men had a good laugh at the thought of me locked in there for the wash cycle. It was still pretty nasty in there, but now it was all wet too. It was better than nothing though so we were both glad to have it there.

Clay was showered and asleep in bed by 6pm. It is 7pm now and I just turned away the maid with turndown service even though I had put the do not disturb sign out about 5pm when we got in here. Oh well. I wonder what she was offering that she thought I would want her to ignore the do not disturb sign for it? I am sweating and tired too. I had a hard day today. My toes on my right foot kept fisting under as I walked today. The longer I walked the quicker it would happen. So we spent a lot of time sitting and me kicking off my shoe and trying to straighten them out. I didn’t have this problem at all yesterday. I never know what it’s going to be. Anyway I need a shower and bed too. So I am off.

It turns out that our first day of our $695pp 2-night Bordeaux pre-tour included only the hotel and a transfer from the airport. That seems high, but tomorrow and the next morning we'll get breakfast as well as a Bordeaux city tour and an afternoon in St. Emilion with a winery visit and wine tasting. By the way, we paid $3195 each for the 7-night Village Life in the Dordogne tour and we paid $1271.90 each for our roundtrip AA flights from RDU to London. We paid £78.39 each for our roundtrip BA flights from London to Bordeaux.

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A good start on our way to the Dordogne

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Monday, September 29, 2014

Flight to Heathrow at 6:15pm. TTA bus route 100 to RDU. Clay drove me & the bags and walked back. It opened up and poured rain right after we got on the bus. Lucky! We had a light meal at Bruegger’s/A&W and soon boarded AA 174. We are in seats 12 A&B. The flight was 7 hours and 20 minutes. We didn’t watch Rio 2 or Here Comes the Boom which were the 2 movies AA showed. Clay had chicken for dinner and I had cheese manicotti. His gave him the squirts, he claims. I tried to sleep for about 5 hours. AA served breakfast. It was orange juice, a croissant with butter and strawberry jam and a strawberry yogurt. We arrived on time. Everything went as smoothly as could be hoped.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

We both had enough on our Oyster cards to just get straight on the Piccadilly Underground train for London. We changed to the District Line for Victoria at Acton Town, just straight across the platform. Be warned there are lots of stairs and no handicap access at Victoria. There are some random escalators but we had take stairs each time we accessed the Underground at Victoria Station! We picked up our Gatwick Express train tickets at Victoria Station and then looked for the best exit to go to the intersection of St. Georges & Hugh Street for the Comfort Inn to drop our bags. We never did find the best exit, but took the second best and started walking. It was about 2 blocks this way. From the closest exit, it was a one block walk. It took us just at 2 hours to get from the gate at Heathrow to the Comfort Inn. We checked in after about a 10 minute wait and first being told we could drop our bags and come back at 2pm. That was lucky. We got room 511 which was a half-story up from the ground floor. It was a family room which was a complimentary upgrade. It had a double and 2 single beds. We used the lobby internet (complimentary for 10 minutes) to check in to our BA flight for tomorrow and to print our boarding passes (50p per page) and double check the Gatwick Express timetable. Clay had booked and prepaid this hotel online back in February and it was £84.15. This rate did not include the basic buffet breakfast but you could partake for an extra £6pp. We did not since we had an early departure before it started. The rooms all included an electric kettle with instant coffee, tea bars and sugar and creamer.

We walked back to Victoria Station and took the Circle Line Underground to Tower Hill to go to the Tower of London to see the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Blood ceramic poppies installation in the moat around the Tower. It is to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. It was amazing. They will hand make and install 888,246 red ceramic poppies to mark the number of British military fatalities. They have been installing them for months and the last one will be installed on 11/11/2014 at 11am and then after a period of silence they will start removing them. They will be sold and shipped. Some proceeds to charity. Obviously, this was a bit morbid. But, I was more interested in it as an art installation and I loved it while still being moved by the magnitude of the cost of war. 

The day had gotten cloudier and colder as we went on, but while we were walking around the Tower the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day. We got sidetracked at the London Tower Bridge because there is an exhibition there. You can pay £7 and go inside the stone towers of the bridge. Clay's senior ticket was only £4.90. It was pretty amazing. I don’t know if that was always a possibility, but we never even thought of walking across before! Inside the pedestrian walkway they had the walls lined with photos of other famous or important bridge and we recognized the Eads Bridge! It still looked like an old ugly bridge. It was an interesting exhibit and I loved how beautiful they used to make the most utilitarian and hidden of equipment. The parts of the bridge that lever up and down are called bascules.

We walked back across to finish seeing the poppies and saw a map that showed a Brunel Museum. I assumed this was about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a historical figure with whom I have long been fascinated. We couldn’t really find anything out on Clay’s phone about it so we took 2 trains to go see. It was only 3 pounds to enter but it looked like a long line to enter and Clay was cranky to eat so we headed back to Victoria Station.

We got to the St. George’s about 3 pm and had lunch. I ordered from the £7 or more special menu. I had Old Spot sausages and mash with a Carling beer for Clay for £8. Clay ordered off the main menu to have £12 worth of fish and chips. He liked it. We walked across the street to Treats for dessert. Clay had pistachio gelato and I had a Nutella crepe. 

We walked back to the Comfort Inn. Clay had a shower and went to bed. I got repacked for tomorrow then took a shower and was in bed by 5pm. It was still light out but we were sleep starved from the overnight flight and we have to get up very early tomorrow to catch the 4:30am or 5am Gatwick Express train. Clay had pre-booked these online as well and we just picked up the tickets from a kiosk at Victoria Station earlier today. He paid £44.70 for both of our roundtrip tickets.

I did not pack the bathroom nightlight I normally take when traveling because I was thinking we would have 2 different kinds of electrical outlets on this trip and I wouldn't be able to use it. That was wrong. Bathrooms in both England and France had normal 110v 2 prong plugs for razors in the bathrooms that would have worked with the nightlight and we'd have been glad to have it. My mistake, your advice.

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