Excursion to St. Emilion!

            Our Centre de Californie program put on an excursion for everyone in our program to St. Emilion today with a trip to a winery! St. Emilion is this medieval city on a hill.  There is a huge bell tower and a beautiful semi-walled city with old cobble-stone roads and a gorgeous view.  We took a bus to the city and then took a small tour of the church and medieval locations.  St. Emilion founded the city and lived underneath it for a while in a small room with a rock for a bed.  The church and chapel are built into the hill so when you walk in you think you are inside a structure and when you walk out you realize that you were semi-underground.  We also got to go into the catacombs where martyrs were were laid to rest, but there weren't any bodies or bones or anything because they were taken out a long time ago, all that was left were niches.  Unfortunately we could not take pictures inside the chapel or the church out of respect for St. Emilion, but it was very interesting!  After walking around the city for a while, we got back onto the bus to drive to the winery side note—it was freezing that day, definitely the coldest day yet.  It is definitely colder in the countryside than in the city center, if I had to guess I would say that it was 29-30 degrees The winery is located near St. Emilion which is located in the Libourne area if you are looking at it on a map.  This particular one works in cooperation with 140 of the 720 vineyards in the area.  That is one of the biggest differences I have noticed between California vineyards and vignobles is that in France there are a ton of very small vignobles that all put their grapes into a handful of wineries.  I don’t know if it works the same way in the states.  At this winery we took a tour and learned all about how to make wine—in french.  At the end of the tour, we all got to try some of the wine produced there, and I must say it was quite good! I bought myself a bottle for who knows what! I am still having a terrific time here, I never want to leave it is just so fantastic!!!