Back to the sea

We left Sarlat after breakfast, headed toward Saint-Jean-de-Luz, almost the last French town before hitting Spain. But first, we drove through kilometer after kilometer of vineyards on our way to Saint-Emilion for lunch. 

Not having any reason to go other than the name, we detoured here, hoping for some connection to the author. 

Turns out that St. Exupery was the Comte de St. Exupery, but otherwise nothing was there but farms. 

Saint-Emilion was a very old, very small town surrounded by vineyards and tasting locations. We had lunch in town. I enjoy trying new things, although I may not enjoy what I try. Such was the case today. My main course was lamprey, cooked in red wine with potatoes and leeks. It is a local favorite, but it was not mine. Vicki noted that I have rarely not eaten what I have ordered, but I couldn’t stomach this.

If I had first looked up what it looked like, I might have ordered the chicken. 

Ugh.

[I played it safe and ordered a salad with baked goat cheese. -v]

After lunch, we hit the road, trying to get to Saint-Jean-de-Luz as quickly as possible. Nothing exciting about the drive, unless you consider toll booths exciting. We typically drive on back roads and avoid highways, but today was for speed. We hit at least 5 toll booths. 

Saint-Jean-de-Luz is a nice seaside town, and it is where Louis XIV married Maria-Theresa of Spain, thus ending years of war between France and Spain. Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz became popular with the royal court and the aristocracy and was a popular playground for the wealthy.

There happened to be a fair going on as well. Note that the cotton candy is called la barbe à Papa - Father’s beard. 

I saw no Pronto Pups, turkey legs, or funnel cakes.

Other shots:

That’s our white Peugeot on the right.

This is St. Jean-Baptiste church. This is where Louis and Theresa got hitched. 

And then there was a sunset over the Grande Plage…

It got better and better.

[He didn't mention dinner. We went to a Basque restaurant that was highly rated and ordered a crab gratin. Expecting crab and cheese and yummy stuff, we got something that seemed like crab mixed with breadcrumbs and sprinkled with cornmeal. No cheese. No yummy stuff. Today sucked as far as food was concerned.

The hotel was fine except that the air conditioning would not go below whatever the temp was outside (20 degrees c, which is 68 degrees f), which would have been fine IF there had been any air moving. Hot flashing people require air moving. So we left the window to the terrace open but guess what was right next door? Not one but TWO churches that rang on the hour - all night. Geez... like we don't all have phones to tell us what time it is... -v]