February 23, 2026 - Saint-Émilion

This morning started a bit rough. We had set the alarm for 7 this morning hoping to take the 8:40 train. Arriving at the tram stop we got a bit confused about which tram we should take so we missed the first two that would have taken us to the train station. On the way to the station, I realized that I had forgotten my phone at the apartment but decided that I could do without it for a day. We would not have made it in time if we had turned around for my phone. Turns out we were not meant to take the 8:40 train because once we arrived at the train station the ticket booths were out of order and the office only opened at 9. The sign on the door said that you needed an appointment to buy your ticket at the office. Jacques booked us an appointment and when the doors opened at exactly 9 since we were the only ones with an appointment booked, we were the first to be served. Things started looking better. 

We found seats on the 9:40 train and 35 minutes later we arrived at the St. Emilion station which is about a 20-minute walk to the old town. It’s a nice walk with fields of vineyards along the way. It’s when you arrive to the old town which of course is a hilltop town that it gets harder. Since we were doing 2 series of lab caches that had to be done sequentially, we went up and down almost all the streets in St. Emilion. Some of them twice. It sure makes you appreciate how the locals manage to stay in shape. They must all have glutes of steel.

We found a restaurant for lunch not far from the monolithic church that we had booked a guided tour for. You cannot visit without a guide, nor are you allowed to take pictures. It was a great experience that we will probably never experience again. The first chamber that we started in was a cave where St. Émilion a Breton hermit from Vanne lived in the 8th century. The catacombs that we visited next were from a later era, I don’t remember when. Then we moved on to the underground church which was dug from the top in the early 12^th century. It is very big, 38 meters long and 12 meters high. They wanted something different or magnificent to attract the pilgrimage going to Santiago de Compostela.

After the visit to the church, we roamed about the town a bit and stopped at a small shop selling wine. We told him what we had tried so far and liked, and he offered us options on what to buy. He suggested wines under what we had budgeted for. We bought one to take home and one to try here. He confirmed what we had read that we would pay less for good wine in Toulouse than in Bordeaux. We took the 5:11 train back to Bordeaux and are spending a quiet evening at the apartment enjoyed the bottle that we bought for here.

Leaving Bordeaux

Lot of signs of flooding. This is not normally a lake.

A quick view of Luborne from the train.

Grape vines everywhere

Arrived at the Saint-Émilion train station

Made it

Former church converted into a wine store

Jacques found his wine

City hall of Saint-Émilion

Cloister

It was a struggle, but Rollande bravely made it through her chocolate desert

Sneak peak through a side entrance of the church

During the French revolution, the heads were knocked off religious sculptures 

Picture taken from the information panel since pictures are not permitted inside the church

What looks like ancient burial site

Some more flooding