This morning to make Alice happy I made a run to the coffee machine to bring back coffees to the room. We then were off for our 9:15 am walking tour of Libourne. It is an historic town dating back hundreds of years. Below is a picture of our "longship" with the dining deck on the front. Our cabin is on deck 2 (the middle deck) about three quarters of the way aft.
Our tour guide this morning and again this afternoon will be Lori (I know, we have had a Laura, a Laure, and now a Lori) who is from San Francisco.
We started out by entering the city through the main gate tower. At one time there were nine such towers with draw bridges and drop down gates, and they were all connected by a wall. This is the only tower remaining. The river is just across from the gate where they would load all the goods arriving by ship and reload the ships with wine to return to all parts of the world. The walls were six feet thick.
We made our way up one of the building-lined city streets, most of which were built in the 18th and 19th centuries. The street ends at the town square.
You can see the produce here that was on sale at the farmers market which filled the square. The market is in operation 3 days a week and all the produce looked exquisite, particularly the strawberries that were available in many varieties.
Our next stop was to taste chocolate at a shoppe on the square. This chocolate company grows their own cacao and hazelnuts along with all the other ingredients. I had a dark chocolate with a ganache center and dried strawberry bits on top.
We then visited the art gallery on the top floor of the Hotel d-Ville (city hall). They had an impressive collection of paintings. There were statues on the walls of the stairwell leading up to the gallery. I loved this one (kind of reminded me of Doug).
We are not big art connoisseurs, but there are certain paintings that catch my eye. Below is the scene from a bar of men smoking, drinking and gambling. I noticed the one man in the corner who appears to be relieving himself.
We then broke away from the group and just explored some of the backstreets on our own. Everything is clean and well maintained (or as well maintained as 300 year old buildings can be).
We returned to the boat for lunch in the dining room. We sat with Norman and Lisa who live in Minnesota, but have lived in Vancouver and he is an OSU grad. Below is a wine warehouse on the waterfront across the river from our ship, our view as we sat at our table at lunch. There are many such buildings along the river.
After lunch we boarded our busses and joined our guide Lori for a trip to Saint Emilion. We drove through Libourne and then through the countryside and vineyards. There were many, many large chateaus on our route.
We drove by the Perthus chateau (no picture) that is argued by some to have consistently made the best wines in the world over the past decades. In a wine shop we passed you could buy one of their 1954 bottles for $3,200 and a 1945 for around $15,000. Thought about it .... well, not really. 
We took a break from our walking around to enjoy a Cremant Rose and a baguette in the courtyard of a church that has been converted to a retail shoppe and restaurante. (Note: to make words French you can just add an "e" to the end.)
Saint Emilion is on the side of a hill with all these homes and buildings crammed together. ( I couldn't get a picture that did justice to this fascinating city.)
I took this picture for Tanner. It is the bell tower that sits on the highest point in the city.
We went into the church that was built in four sections, the first section begun in the 12th century and the fourth section in the 16th century.
Like other cities, Saint Emilion too had a wall around it but the wall was made up of houses and buildings. The picture below is one of the few remaining sections of the wall which is very tall.
While we were touring our boat was moving from Libourne to Bourg. It took about an hour to catch up with our boat.
We went to dinner and sat with a couple who live in Connecticut but who have ties to Oregon and are familiar with Newberg. After dinner a French cabaret jazz trio performed. They were very talented musicians -- vocalist, violin and guitar -- who were very entertaining. It was an intimate and rewarding performance. Beats going out into a crowded club to hear.
From 9 am until 10 pm today we have been on the move. It has been a very fun day. Now it is time for bed.
Dinner Menu: Three onion soup, roti de porc au four (pork loin), gateau au vin rouge (red wine cake). Wine: Chai de Bordes Rouge, Cheval Quancard, Bordeaux
Daily Step Count: 7,138 steps with our walking tours of Liborne and Saint-Emilion
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