This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Yesterday we went to visit Puy de Dôme which is a volcano just outside of Clermont-Ferrand.  It is about 4,800 ft high and can be reached by hiking up steep trails or taking a tram (we obviously chose the latter).

The tram ride itself was beautiful and of course the views from the top were amazing.  We even saw some people paragliding.

The photos I took definitely don’t do it justice, but hope you enjoy a glimpse of how beautiful our region of France is!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One of the perks of living in France is Ryan has 3 weeks off in August!  He has a total of 42 vacation days this year which is AMAZING and we are really going to miss this when we move back to the U.S.  (Side note:  many businesses close for 3 weeks in August for vacation.  Most of the large stores and businesses will remain open, but you can walk through town and see a lot of places shut down.)  Mom and Dad P are here and we decided to take a trip to the Bordeaux area since we all love wine.

We stayed at a Bed & Breakfast which was in an apartment building, not a stand-alone house.  The building was pretty old and the B&B had a lot of character with original hardwood floors, fireplaces in the bedrooms and pretty wallpaper.  Mom and Dad P had a bedroom on the main floor and our bedroom was down a spiral staircase like our own private suite.

After we checked in, we went to get lunch in Place du Parlement.  Then we headed to Miroir D’eau (the water mirror) which is a huge slab of granite with many tiny fountains that either create shallow water or a mist.  Makenna loved playing in the water!  We walked around the city, had some ice cream, then went out for dinner.  When we got back to the B&B we put Makenna to bed and hung out in the living room enjoying some Bordeaux wine.

The next day we went to Saint Emilion which is a beautiful little city outside of Bordeaux, and is home to some very, very delicious wine.  We had a wine tasting at 10am at Chateau de Pressac which was a beautiful castle with amazing views.  This place was really neat because it is owned by a couple who actually live in the castle…many of the other chateaus are not actually occupied.  The wine tasting room had windows overlooking the valley which was really nice.  After our tasting we walked around the downtown area and about 90% of the shops were wine shops, with some craft and souvenir shops in between.  We ate lunch outside then headed to Chateau Saint Georges for another wine tasting.  This was another beautiful chateau that was inherited by the owner’s 7 children and they use it as their vacation home.  Our wine tasting here was interesting because it started outside in a garden where they had herbs, fruits and vegetables growing.  They had us taste and smell several things like mint, fennel, raspberries and tomatoes to educate us on flavors and smells that can be found in the wine.  Then we had 5 jars that we had to smell and guess what they were.  When we tasted the wine we had to guess what flavors were in each wine.

We spent the following day at the beach in Arcachon which is about 45 minutes outside of Bordeaux.  We wanted to start the day by visiting Dune du Pilat which is the tallest sand dune in Europe, but apparently everyone else in Europe who was on their 3 week vacation decided to go there and after sitting in traffic for about an hour we turned around.  We stopped for lunch along the beach at a place known for really good mussels.  For my main dish I decided to try grilled sardines and they were delicious!  The service wasn’t great though and lunch wound up taking 3 hours (lunches in France can be long, but usually no more than 2 hours) and of course Makenna wasn’t too happy about that.  Then we went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon.  We saw some huge jellyfish washed up on the beach but luckily didn’t encounter any in the water.  Makenna had a great time playing in the water and sand.

Our last day in Bordeaux was spent enjoying more wine tastings.  The first tasting was at Chateau d’Agassac which was really neat because it looked just like a traditional castle and even had a little moat around it.  We tasted 2 different wines and the tour guide accidentally poured too many glasses so of course I didn’t want any wine to go to waste and I had another glass.  Then we tasted a jam that was made with one of their wines which was really good.  Lunch was at a small local café and was delicious!  I had duck skewers that had dried apricots which tasted great together, and each of our meals came with a dessert and a carafe of wine which was easily 3 glasses of wine per person…not bad!  In the afternoon we had a wine tasting at Chateau Giscours which was beautiful.  There was a Dutch family on the tour with us and Makenna made friends with a little 6 year old girl, it was so cute.

We drove back the following day which is about a 3 1/2 hour drive.  For lunch we stopped at an “aire” (a rest stop) which was a really nice one as some of them can be pretty bare with just bathrooms where you have to squat.  This aire was huge and must be well known as it was super crowded.  They had a restaurant, sandwich café, small grocery store, nice bathrooms, a playground, picnic tables etc.  Some people even looked like they were setting up camp for the day, where they had tented areas with chairs and coolers set up.  In typical French fashion, people stopped and sat down for a meal and relaxed instead of grabbing food and eating in the car.  Some were even having wine with their meal.

The only down side of our trip is Makenna was basically eaten alive by mosquitos at the B&B.  There was no air conditioning (apparently what I thought meant “air conditioned” doesn’t always mean that, and sometimes just means they have heat) so we had to keep our windows open and in France they don’t have screens on the windows.  Makenna had so many bug bites all over her body that at one point we actually thought it might be chicken pox or something else and when we got home we took her to the doctor.  Thankfully it was just bug bites and the doctor prescribed some anti-itch medicine.

We all really loved Bordeaux and I’m hoping we make it back to Arcachon before we move back to the U.S. so we can see the dune!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Mom and Dad P are visiting right now for a couple weeks and we decided to take a trip to the region where Beaujolais is made because they always drink this wine for Thanksgiving.  Ryan planned a day trip for us to go to 2 wine tastings and have lunch overlooking the village.

Our “adventure” started with the drive there….which was almost 2 1/2 hours….and a good part of the drive being on tiny, windy roads in the middle of nowhere.  We were starting to feel sick from all the turns in the road and really thought the GPS took us way off track somehow when we weren’t seeing any signs of life while literally driving up and down a mountain.  We finally made it to a main road and found the village of Beaujeu.

When we thought we found the place we had a reservation at for the first wine tasting, we couldn’t figure out where the actual wine tasting took place.  One building looked like it might be a hotel, and then we found a man standing outside the other building that we thought was “the place”, but somehow I think our reservation was lost in translation and the man said they were preparing for a wedding.  He called someone and asked if he had time to do a wine tasting with us and told us to go up the hill to a modern looking villa.  We started to walk but it was up this very steep hill and we didn’t see what we thought would be a “wine tasting place” in sight, just a house.  Well that house wound up being the location we were looking for and the vineyards were along side it.  It was the home of the winemaker whose family owns the building where the wedding was being held.  I had to change Makenna so they brought me into their living room to change her on the sofa and then took us outside and around to the back of the house. I literally thought we were going to sit on the patio of their home and taste wines but the winemaker, Jean Luc, took us into his basement where he built a wine tasting room and a room for bottling and labeling wine.  It was an interesting situation for sure, but it turned out to be a really neat experience.

We tasted 3 different wines and Jean Luc talked and talked to us for 2 hours.  Ryan did so well speaking to him and understanding what he was saying, I was impressed with how well his French has improved in less than a year!  Jean Luc didn’t charge us anything for the wine tasting and gave us 4 wine glasses too!  We bought 4 bottles which were all around 8 euros.  I love how we can find good wine that’s very inexpensive here.

After getting lost and then spending 2 hours with Jean Luc, we wound up going to lunch around 2pm.  We ate at a restaurant called La Terrasse which had a beautiful view overlooking the area.  Ryan was helping Mom and Dad P figure out what was on the menu and they ordered what they thought was veal.  Later on Ryan realized it was actually veal brain!!! I don’t think Dad P was too happy to hear that, but they said it wasn’t bad.  I’m glad I played it safe and ordered chicken!  For dessert, the waitress told us to go up to the counter and choose from their large selection of pastries, cakes and tarts.  Everything looked SO good, I had a hard time deciding.  After lunch it was too late to make it to our 2nd wine tasting so we took some pictures of the view and then headed home.

We really have an angel baby because Makenna only napped for about 30 minutes and didn’t eat as much as usual, not to mention she made it through a 2 hour wine tasting and 5 hours of driving!

It was a long day but as everything in France turns out to be, it was an adventure!  I don’t think I’ll ever forgot driving through those windy mountain roads to taste wine in someone’s basement!