Jake & Miles' European Excursion

We now enter the final week of the trip. With a slightly action-packed schedule for the next few nights, the blog will be brief.

What was your favourite thing about Bordeaux?

Miles: I liked the bed couch.

Jake: I liked the wine tour.

What did you learn about making wine?

Jake: How to prune the vines. Every year you cut off all the old vines and you keep two of the one year old vines. These will grow new vines next year and produce lots of grapes.

Miles: To get the juice out of the grapes you put them in a machine and then you stomp on them. To get the seeds out at the end (of fermentation) you need to wear special clothes so you don’t soak up all the alcohol and die.

How much does a bottle of wine cost?

Miles: It depends how big it is. If it’s really big it could be €9,000 or something.

Jake: The bottles that we saw cost €30 and €80. But it also depends on how well made it is and how old it is.

Photos

Jake and Miles pose in front of the Porte Cailhau

Golf challenge: hit the double magnum at the end of the road on the full. I missed by this much.

The family assemble in Saint Émilion

Sonia posing in the streets of Saint Émilion

Another transition day sees the longest and least luxurious train connection yet. Yes that’s right, dear readers, the Intercités has no bar. Now we know what it was like catching a train in the dark ages.

Upon arrival in Bordeaux we immediately made our way to the Cité du Vin, which proved to be an important and entertaining educational experience for all. Jake won the virtual grape crushing challenge with a total of 95 kg in 90 seconds. I would have beat him but I was le tired. Miles came second in the high 80s. Now we know why you should always use child labour in the wine making process.

The camera is straight, everything else is on an angle

Tomorrow: some touring around the wine region. For now, we leave you with some reflections on Gaudí and Barcelona.

G	ood
A	mazing
U	p and he made something tall
D	iagonally built
Í	t was exciting

B	rilliant
A	rtistic buildings
R	ide trains / metros
C	ome to the Sagrada Família
E	ntertaining
L	ovely food
O	ne good place
N	O! Why do we have to go?
A	whole lot of sights

The hike

At Montserrat I did two hikes one was: about 1 kilometre and the other was: 4 kilometres.

This is where our journey begins and it will end here.

We will start our journey up the mountain

The 2nd hike was up a mountain. Luckily at the start I found a good hiking stick (it was just a thick stick with a handle but it still worked) and it helped me a few times. When we reached a cliff my mum didn’t want us to go to the highest bit but we still did!

We conquered this crazy mountain

Miles and I found a hermit’s old house on the hike.

This is the house of some old hermit who is probably dead

I found my way up the steep mountain path leading to the geocache (we didn’t find it in the end).

We’re almost there just a bit more!