Exploring St Emilion

We had booked a tour of the Monolithic Church through the tourist office, the only way to see inside the church.  The guide was very engaging and full of stories.  

Our first stop was the hermitage of Emilion, a cave where St Emilion lived for 17 years.  As a young man, Emilion served as a baker for the Count of Vannes in Brittany.  When famine struck, Emilion used to smuggle bread in his coat to feed the poor.  One day Emilion was questioned by his suspicious master. When he opened his coat pieces of wood were released instead of bread – his first miracle. News spread quickly and Emilion soon had quite a following. He fled Brittany and travelled south, eventually settling in a large limestone cave.  We saw the stone slab he used as a bed and the stone chair, said to be a fertility chair, with some success according to testimonials of successful pregnancies received by the tourist office. The water flowing in the cave has alleged healing properties and the site attracted a large number of pilgrims.

This led to the building of the Trinity chapel in the early 13th century with Medieval paintings on ceiling and lids of sarcophagi from the catacombs on display.  

The catacombs had the remains of the 8th century graves carved out of the rock spaces, above which were small alcoves carved out for babies. There was a large light shaft, no longer open, and a spiral staircase hewn out of the rock that once reached the surface.   

The final stop was the monolithic church dug out of the ground and for a long time, the largest monolithic church in Europe. Carved out of rock in the 11th century, the limestone removed during this process was used in buildings such as the Grand theatre in Bordeaux and helped to fund the construction of the church.  The bell tower was built in the 15th century and due to water ingress, its weight threatened to collapse the church. As a result, the stone pillars were supported by massive steel structures.  

We wandered further through the town and found a boulangerie for lunch supplies.  We had a couple of hours before heading out for our winery tour some 20 minutes cycle away.  It was a glorious afternoon as we cycled to Chateau St George, a 45 hectare vineyard established in 1602.  The tour guide took us through the gardens and explained the ages of the vineyards and the process for growing the merlot grapes.  She explained the wine making process and the transfer from the steel vats into the wooden casks.  Then we were able to taste the wines.  We were not big fans of the merlot, so decided not to purchase any, given the price. 

It was a nice ride back into town – and we picked up some cheaper, and very drinkable wine from another local winery, Chateau Chevalier Saint-Georges.  

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