St Christoly Medoc to St Julien

Wednesday 28th
St Christoly Medoc to St-Julien-Beychevelle
Excellent breakfast in a grand dining room and we headed off for Pauillac in thick fog with a string of chateaux to look at on the way. We wondered if we would be the only people to do the scenic route of the chateaux and not see any but luckily it cleared after an hour or so. It was ten 25 degs so lovely weather for biking.
Once you get out of the Bourgeois cru region and into the Premier cru the names of the chateaus read like a roll of honour. We came down the coast road as the main road was overloaded with heavy lorries taking the grape skins to wherever they make ‘eau de vie’ and were quite scary. All along the coast are the crevette catching machines all unoccupied until suddenly there was a chap lowering his net. He invited us aboard and showed us his meagre haul - perhaps as many as 20 shrimps, didn’t really seem worth all the effort and explained why no one else was out. His French was unintelligible and we had trouble understanding him but all was revealed later when he said he was Spanish, and had only lived in France for 46 years and seemed reluctant to speak any French. I’m not certain if he spoke it better than I do, he just shouted louder.
The local Bordelais dialect is impossible and we have been caught out several times. Last night we asked for a plate of cheese for 1 and were given 1 very thin slice of cheese only! We asked for some ham for lunch to go in our baguette and when we stopped later to have our midday feast, unwrapped it to find 4 huge thick slices of uncooked bacon. That was a very upsetting moment!
Pauillac which we had been told was ‘full’ of B&B’s turned out to have none so after a frustrating time we managed to find one in St-Julien -Beychevelle. St Julien boasts a very fine restaurant which we looked forward to trying, very much. It looked a bit on the smart side so put on our best clothes and sauntered over to be told it was closed for a private party. So back on the bikes 5 miles into Pauillac and then home again much later. Luckily it was a beautiful warm starry night and the road was quite empty.
It was a day for losing things, The mayoress had to chase us along the road to return a pair of specs, we lost a map, but found it on the ground and I then lost my phone. Luckily I found that bad Alec had hidden it under his bike helmet outside for the night.