St. Emilion

Our second night was spent in a little town called St. Emilion. We ended up staying in the only hotel in another town called Coutras, which was about a 20 minute drive to St. Emilion. St. Emilion at night was pretty neat. It was the night before Halloween which was pretty fitting because the town seemed to be deserted. It was built in the 13th century in a dip in the countryside and the first thing we saw was just a huge wall which looked like it used to belong to a cathedral. Apparently it was bombed way back in the day. We parked quite easily and headed into town. The first place we saw was a hotel that had rooms for 625 euro a night and an 8-course meal for 130 euro. We considered staying there, but then thought we might want to have rent money for the next two months, so we moved on. Walking through the town was kind of spooky because everything was closed and the streets were lit with orange lights. It gave it a bit of an eerie feeling. It was dinner time, so we stopped in the place that had the best menu. The woman asked us how many, we said two. She asked if we had a reservation, we said no. She promptly firmly replied: NO MADAME and turned around in a bustle and left. My roommate and I were both pretty stunned at the rudeness, so I thanked her for her cordiality and peaced out. It was a good thing too because the other place we found was great. I randomly ordered something off the menu. Ok, I say that but just because I didn’t know what it was. I was 80% sure it was a white fish and it was. It was also really really yummy. There were some interesting side dishes, but dessert was a strawberry tart that was yummy.
We returned to St. Emilion the next day and the first thing we did was get the key to the bell tower. I went to ask about climbing it and the lady at the office gave me the key and told me to lock the door behind me! It was neat because we climbed up and got to explore the place and take in the views all alone. No words can do the beauty of fall in this area justice. It was absolutely stunning. We perused the wine shops of the town a little after that without finding anyone who wanted to sell us wine. Strange I know, but we kept going into places and people were just kinda hanging out, not really engaging customers or getting them to buy anything. I guess people usually do their own leg work with finding good wines. We had a very good lunch in a little cave and learned that Paris macaroons and Bordeaux macaroons are two different things. Paris ones are two cake like things with a frosting or jam in the middle like a sandwich. Bordeaux macaroons are just cookies. We had another Bordeaux area treat called a canelé, which was a cake with an interesting flavor (I just wikipedia-ed it, the flavor was rum). Our adventure in St. Emilion complete, we headed out to the vineyards surrounding the town.