In November, when my friend Sheena was here, we visited the gorgeous medieval town of Saint-Émilion. Saint-Émilion is a UNESCO world heritage site, located in the Aquitaine region in south-west France near Bordeaux.
We caught an early morning TGV train from Paris – Gare Montparnasse to Libourne and then a local train from Libourne to Saint-Émilion. The total train journey was just under 4 hours. We then arrived at a deserted train station and for a moment felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We had no data reception at all so it’s a good idea to print maps before hand. We saw a sign pointing to the medieval city so we walked in that direction about kilometre up the hill.
Saint-Émilion is known for its wine and for the ancient monolithic church in which the saint with the same name used to live in.
In the afternoon, we relaxed, had some amazing local food and wine. Then later, we did a tour of the underground monuments and also a wine tour. We stayed at the amazing guest house called Maison de la Commanderie which I would highly recommend.
It was a short visit but we saw a lot of amazing things. I would recommend visiting a little earlier in the year, around end September or early October as a lot of the tours were not available in November. Apparently in summer this little town is swarming with tourists so I’m glad we experienced it while it was less busy. We had an amazing time and were sad to leave this beautiful French town.
From Melbourne to Paris (And Back Again) 