DAY 414 - sun, sand, vino & aussie’s

After our big drive over the Pyrenees we stopped off for a few nights to enjoy the sun, sand and the lakes around Bordeaux.  Dune Du Pyla is around 80km south of Bordeaux and is the largest sand dune in Europe.  After an exhausting climb to the top your instantly rewarded with some of the best views of the bay and surrounding area.

We stayed not far from the dune on Lac Biscarrosse before hitting Bordeaux itself.  Lake Biscarrosse is a huge, HUGE!  fresh water lake & from our campsite we could see a number of towns located around the perimeter.  I didn’t realize how big it was until on a clear day I could see the other side and realized it would probably take you all day to drive around it.  The whole area had a holiday shack/house feel to it and reminded us of Goolwa & Victor Harbor in SA (but better) and a real relaxing atmosphere about it.

I must admit the excitement was building up as hit the road and headed to Bordeaux.  We were able to escape the camper for a few nights and caught up with some friends from Adelaide, Will and Bea who now live in this amazing city.  After being in the Alps for 3 months and having no one, other than ourselves, to talk too we were so excited at the prospect of being able to get past obligatory “Bonjour” & "Bonsoir".

Will & Bea live virtually right in the heart of Bordeaux city and it’s not hard to fall in love with the place like they have.  Bordeaux is just awesome and the water front promenade is pretty spectacular and especially so on sunset, when they use different lighting & water affects to showcase it.  I think we'll definitely be going back and spending some more time in this amazing city.

An added bonus of catching up with these guys is that Bea works for one of THE top wineries (or should I say Chateau’s) in France and in fact the world!  Many of the wines from Bea’s work range in the Hundreds of Euros per bottle, so understandably we didn’t get to taste those, but  a visit to the Medoc region and a little bit of vino education from Bea, we now consider ourselves to be ‘slightly better informed’.  The Medoc region is beautiful and is home to some jaw dropping fairly tale like Chateau’s.  It certainly put’s old McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley to shame.

Will is Operations Manager for Sports Pulsions which the highly successful official tour leaders for Tour de France.  If your a cycling enthusiast (or fanatic as I call you) then Will &  Sports Pulsions are your man!

Paul and I often laugh over a memory we have of a chairlift ride we shared with a guy in Alpe d’Huez.    He was the first English person we had come across in nearly 2 months and we were talking with him a million miles an hour, that when we got to the top, he took off like lightening (kinda seemed like he couldn’t get off quick enough).  We then looked at each other and said ‘do you think we scared him?’ and burst out laughing!

So we are now a little afraid that we may have ‘talked their ears off’.  Hope their healing well Will & Bea?