Day 149: Taking the High-Speed Train to St. Cibard Near Bordeaux
As we left our Ile St. Louis apartment this morning, we made a big decision: We ditched the umbrella stroller we’d been lugging around. If we didn’t use it walking around Paris, we wouldn’t use it at all and needed to unburden ourselves. The cleaning lady we gifted it to was delighted!
This morning we took the TGV (high-speed train) from Montparnasse station in Paris to Bordeaux, then caught a second local train to Libourne where we rented a car at Avis and drove 30 minutes to St. Cibard.
(That description makes it sound so easy! We — mostly Teddy — were sweating with the schlep from our tiny walkup all the way to our rental car — glad we don’t have a lot of short hops via train on this trip).
I had a French au pair growing up named Benedicte. Benedicte’s one of 13 kids whose family owns a vineyard near Bordeaux. We visited the estate when I was young, then her nephew, Jan, stayed with us in DC when I was in high school. By the time I was living in France after college I was regularly visiting the family for Easter, or hosting Jan in Paris or Normandy and Jan’s parents had been to DC to see my parents.
So I had to pay them a visit after all these years.
Today Jan and his two brothers, Florian and Clements, have taken over the family business in addition to buying a chateau of their own and starting something totally new on the side.
The rental car was stick, which was unexpected but fun for me — and nice for Teddy, the non-stick driver, to get a break from all the driving.
We made our way along the little roads to their place, where Jan met us out front.
So fun to see him after all these years! He got us set up in our own gite — a separate living area attached to the main house — and soon we were swimming in the new pool and eating cherries off a cherry tree in the yard.
And the best part: Oscar the lhasa apso dog, who Willa and James were immediately obsessed with.
At 6:30 pm, everyone gathered on the terrace for an apero. Jan’s parents, Sabine and Dominique, were there, as well as Florian aka Flo and Clements. Florian’s wife Laura was there with their three kids: Marius, Jules and Louise. Clements’ wife wasn’t there — she’s in Rome for work — but he brought their three kids, Zoe, Alice and 2-year-old Camille.
We caught up on the terrace drinking champagne while the kids played “cache-cache” aka hide and seek and climbed the cherry tree. James played football with one of the boys.
By 8 pm the kids had to head home because it’s a Monday night. We stayed and had a fun dinner on the terrace with Sabine, Dominique and Jan.
Dinner was actually leftover lamb they roasted the Saturday before for Jan’s engagement party! He’s engaged to woman from Nantes who currently lives in Paris and is moving to St. Cibard in July. We already have the save-the-date for next May….on sait jamais!
Before dinner, Jan took us down into the cellar his father said he’s squatting in. Jan likes to buy wines at auction and from old cellars of people who don’t realize what they have. He’s got a dusty and fun collection, and brought up an armful of bottles to try.
We tasted a bunch of reds, including some from the 20s, while the kids played with Oscar and did Legos.
It was lovely.
We wound up getting to bed, all of us, around 11:30!
