St-Emilion and the other Peppers

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We left Bordeaux in the morning and made or way via minor roads and across both the Garonne and Dordogne rivers to another centre of wine production, St-Emilion. St-Emilion is a small ancient town built on a hillside and has may underground catacombs used for storing wines and an amazing underground church all excavated by monks between the ninth and twelfth centuries. We were able to visit them all and also purchased some local wine.

We then drove back to the Dordogne and stayed the night at Ste-Foy- la-Grande, a Bastide town on the river. When I handed over my camping carnet to the campsite owner, he did a double take and said that another couple with the name of Pepper had booked in only an hour before. We quickly introduced ourselves to Alan and Margaret Pepper and passed a very pleasant evening with them getting through a couple of bottles of wine. It turned out that some years ago I had met their niece who is an architect for HSBC Bank.

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