Bordeaux, Bordeaux... what would any decent person do in Bordeaux on their second day there? In honor of Ton-Loc and simply out of common sense, we started our second day in Bordeaux off with a wine tour at Chateau Latour-Martillac. The Chateau Latour-Martillac has been family owned for over a century (I need to double check that) and is as they claim "the worst of the best," meaning they are in the highest classification of chateau in Bordeaux region, but sit towards the bottom in terms of prestige and price. Do they really market their wine as "the best of the worst"? Definitely not, and it was nice to see that our tour guide, in addition to giving us a really nice informative tour, had a sense of humor.
Many oak barrels full of delicious wine
Rachel sampling the white... and clearly enjoying it
After we finished our wine tour and tasting, we head back to the campsite which was located next to a beach and had a lounge day splitting time between our campsite swimming pool (a ridiculous thought for anyone who has done real camping, I know), the cesspool aka a little lagoon a few hundred meters off of the beach, and the beach.
For dinner we walked around the Andernos Le Bain boardwalk, admiring a tide so low and far out that if it had not been for hundreds of boats sitting atop the sand, you wouldn't even be able to tell there was ocean there. Troy and Bart took the time to pose on the beach with some 12 year old girls, in a hilarious sequence of events where the cute 18 year-old+ girls posing/lying on the beach below turned into a group of awkward 14 year-olds when they got closer (see below)
Looking like cute girls our age:
Actually 13 year-old girls:
HAHA.After the said picture shoot (which actually included about a dozen more pictures of the whole sequence), we settled down for a dinner of muscles at a restaurant where we were served by a doppelganger of Aaron's mother (or so he said). It was good, as was the ice cream that followed. We went to bed with rain clouds looming over our tents.
Having survived the rain showers of the night, we woke up on July 9th ready to continue our trek south, destination Biarritz. Before arriving in Biarritz, however, we had two important stops. 1) We ate oysters and sausages in Esplanade Des Ostreiculteurs, said to be the best oysters in the world, and 2) spent the day climbing the largest sand dunes in Europe at Dune de Pyla. Joris had picked both these pit stops out and deserves all the credit for us finding these amazing spot.
Oysters and Sausage... THAT IS WHAT ESPLANADE DES OSTREICULTEURS DOES!
Group shot in Esplanade ...I didn't think it was possible to have that much fun with nothing but sand, but Pyla lived up to her reputation. Set with the ocean on one side and a forest on the other, the top of the dune offers beautiful views in any direction you look.
We spent a few hours pretending we were lost in a desert, trying not to create any footprints in the wind hardened sand, having jumping contests, walking down to the beach, walking back up to the top of the dune (tiring), watching hang/para gliders, and sprinting down from the top of the dune. Although these things may not sound like much, this may have been my favorite day of the trip up until this point. Sharing beautiful nature with good company is tough to beat.
Us trekking around in the endless sand
Ocean side View
Me rescuing a beautiful girl from a sand storm
Forest side viewAfter our fun in the sand, we continued on to Biarritz, a ritzy coastal town not too far from the border of Spain. This was our final stop with Joris, and was a great way to finish our time in France. Bearritz showed us a great time... check back soon to hear about it.
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