A travelling day

A travelling day today so we availed ourselves of the hotel breakfast, which we had previously declined, since it cost 26 euros for the two of us.  Very pleasant though.

One thing I haven't mentioned about our hotel is that we were strictly forbidden from eating in our room. Haven't struck that before and it seems pretty odd in the context that other than next door (which will only open if they have at least two bookings) the nearest food is 20 kms away.

The other odd thing was that we were not permitted to do any washing of clothes in the room.  Bit of a bummer as the multi-night options are the ones we typically use to hang up our temporary clothesline in the bathroom!  They suggested the 20 km drive to a laundromat in town - not a great use of holiday time.

Notwithstanding that, it was a lovely place to stay.

We had plenty of time up our sleeve as we couldn't check in at St Jean d'Angely until 5 pm so we have stopped for a few photo ops and detoured to St Emilion which is a famous wine-growing area.  There was a vineyard every 100 m along the road in and apparently 50 wine shops - one for every eight head of population.  All very exclusive - the most expensive bottle we saw (a 1948 vintage) was selling for 10,000 euros!  Saw some very lovely wine glasses I would have loved to buy, but at 160 euros for a pair, I resisted!  A pleasant little detour.

We'd been debating visiting the Dune du Pilat [Pyla?] which was a 130 km round trip out of our way but thought the weather made it not worth the time.  However, as we hit Bordeaux the rain eased, so we took a punt and went for it.  The dune is 3 km wide and growing at the rate of 4.5 m per year.  So far it has eaten up trees, a road junction and a hotel!  There is a plastic stairway of 160 steps up the side and then a further climb to the top where there are magnificent views of the bay, even in the cloud as we saw it. The sand is golden and 'clean' - it didn't stick to our shoes.  So, another good choice - we're getting lots of variety!

Nipping along now on the motorway at 130 kph. Lots of trucks on the road but they are only allowed in the right lane. Traffic has been well behaved in general other than some crazy overtaking out in the countryside.