Expat Somewhere in France: The problem with Mondays in France.

If you are one of the millions of people in the UK or elsewhere that hates Mondays .... move to France. Apparently they hate Mondays too, so just don't have them. .....

Today we took a drive around the area, just to see what it's like, and get a feel for the area. Some of the towns were rather eerily quiet, and that was at 11am on a Monday morning! But that's just the thing - many French shops just simply don't open on a Monday. At all. And the one restaurant that was open for lunch - well, we were too late at 1:15pm, as they closed at 2pm. So if you're just not a Monday sort of person, this well could be the perfect place for you!

On our travels around the area today, we left Pineuilh, and travelled west. We went through Castillon-la-Bataille. According to Google: Castillon-la-Bataille is the site of the last battle of the Hundred Years' War; the battle of Castillon, fought on 17 July 1453. It was quite lovely, and had a very old feel to it - I suppose it's to be expected given it's history!!

Castillon-la-Bataille

A Typical road in Castillon-la-Bataille
It has a charm of it's own, which is
hard to capture in a picture.

Castillon-la-Bataille
A large Antiques and Bric-a-brac store
with a LOT of very interesting
items!

From there, we made our way to Saint-Émilion, which is well known for it's wines. We saw fields and fields and FIELDS of vines. They were just everywhere. And there were so many different names - each making their own blend of wines. We managed to drive through the town itself, but there was just no parking available - and that is no exaggeration! People were even parking on the curb!! There was no way we were getting anywhere near the town without getting there a WHOLE lot earlier!

Grape crop sprayer in Saint-Émilion

Saint-Émilion

A Chateau just outside of Saint-Émilion

There were so many names on the farms aroundSaint-Émilion.

A horse drawn plough that helps to airate the soil between the
vines, so as to be more gentle.

Well, sadly we didn't see any.

We returned to Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, but decided to have a quick look at the other side of the river. It was lovely - we didn't swim in it like some others though. I took two landscape pictures. The one with my camera, and the other with my phone. We then suddenly realised that we were exactly opposite the campsite! It was so hot yet again, that we returned just to throw ourselves into the pool!