Tag: Trums Travels.

This was another of my favourite spots albeit on a rainy day again ! The village of St Emilion……………..

Saint-Emilion (population approximately 1,600) got it’s name from the following legend. The story tells of a monk from Brittany who fled his hometown to seek refuge in one of the natural caves in a place called Ascum bas (former name of the village) in the 8th century.
His name was Emilion and because he made this village a great religious centre, it was named after him. The bell tower built above the church dates from the 12th century and although modest in size at the time, during the 15th century, it was redesigned and now has a hard time holding the weight being reinforced in 1626 by the addition of a massive corner buttress and the doubling of the walls of its lower section. The pillars have had to be reinforced and are now closely monitored.

We had to walk down a very steep cobblestone path to get to the entrance to the underground church called the Monolithic Church of Saint-Emilion. Everyone was hanging onto each other and treading very carefully, particularly because the cobblestones were wet and that makes them very slippery.

We also stopped and had a tour of the Collegiate Church. Lots of churches on this trip !

After our tours and stopping for a coffee, we headed on to a winery called Clos St Julien.

We finished the day off by driving back to Bordeaux to our same hotel we stayed in last night. We had the rest of the day/evening to ourselves and so off we went exploring.

That was that for this area of France and so on 21 May 2025, we headed to the village of Villandry …..