Our first motorhome trip to France Verdon-sur-Mer to St Estephe
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Our first motorhome trip to France Verdon-sur-Mer to St Estephe
Today we are following the wine route along the top end of the Gironde estuary starting from the aire de camping cars at Le Verdon sur Mer. Our rate of travel has slowed down; the initial drive through France was very fast because we wanted to meet with our family and spend time with them in Bordeaux. Now we are moving along at our own leisurely pace, we don’t have to be anywhere on a particular date, so we can let ourselves be free.
We pass through carefully tended vines in straight rows, newly planted vines, old gnarled vines, some look ancient. The tending of the vines looks like hot tiring work. We saw a sign for a lighthouse, so diverted off the main road to explore and found the old lighthouse and cafe with excellent clean toilets. It was a great place to stop off, as shown by the number of people that were there.
Next stop was Valeyrac for lunch. We followed signs for a wine producer, that turned out to be a tortuous route across country, narrow winding roads up and down, to the Chateau La Tour de By, left the Hymer outside on the road because the gates were narrow. First we visited a tower in among the vines, had a tour of the vats and cellars then to the tasting room. The wines were good, but not ones that we really appreciated, so we did not buy, which was very disappointing, we had expected to come away laden with bottles.
We looked for an aire and found St Estephe nearby; guided by google maps we were soon there. The aire turned out to be a long strip of open ground along the coast, no charge and plenty of choice about where to pitch. Sat out and drank wine, another eight motorhomes arrived and set up on the aire de camping cars.
The Gironde estuary has fishing stations all along it, like small piers that support a huge net that can be lowered into the water and then raised to catch fish, CARRELET in French. In the evening we watched the tide coming in at a ferocious speed, the mud on the shore is sticky brown stuff, definitely not something you would try to walk in.
Our motorhome tour around France : Verdon-sur-Mer to St Estephe
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