After an overnight ferry crossing from Portsmouth, we drove down in the SLK from Le Havre which took us just over six hours on the autoroutes, so we arrived in Bordeaux at around 5pm leaving us plenty of time for a stroll around before looking for somewhere for dinner. The next day we got an early start and spend the whole day exploring the streets of the old town.
On Monday we set off (roof down) for St Emillon which is a really pretty place about 25 miles east. The weather was perfect except for a short spell while we were having lunch! but it didn't spoil our fun. After we'd had a good look around, had lunch, and bought three bottles of some pretty expensive wine (especially for us), we headed of to Les Eyzies another 40 miles east. We arrived there to find a really pretty little village and our hotel was bang in the middle right next to the river - all very idyllic - it was covered in ivy and was right off a postcard. Our room was very nice with a fantastic modern bathroom just like we'd choose for ourselves, the staff were all very friendly, and the food in the restaurant was something really special and the presentation was just amazing.
We spent our four days there driving around in the sunshine visiting the little medieval villages, châteaux, and vineyards - everywhere we went was really very nice and, as a bonus, pretty quiet too. So we got plenty of exercise, had some great meals, and saw some amazing countryside that we'd never visited before.
We headed up north on Friday and arrived in Guidel, Brittany at around 4pm after a long 400 miles of driving to stay with our friend Pete . He has a house there and we've been planning to visit him for a while so we'd finally made it. He took us out to a local fish place in the evening where we had a great meal and plenty of wine.
On Saturday we began the journey home and judging by the long lines of cars heading south we were leaving at just the right time. This was the weekend that the big European vacation season starts so we were happy to be leaving it behind after a really great weeks vacation.
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