The best plans.....and Burgundy paydirt

Well, good news and bad news. I guess I'll give you the bad news first. To get from Bordeaux to the CDP area is an all day train ride - as in leave at 8am get there at 5pm. Our plan was to go Saturday, however, we don't want to waste an entire Saturday travelling there, particularly since not much is open Sunday. So, we've opted to take CDP out of the mix. It just didn't seem like it was going to be worth the travel time and addition to a few other reasons: there's one or less hotel in CDP so everything would require a car, which we didn't want to rent and there's no public transportation so we just felt like we'd spend an arm and a leg on taxis. Sad, I know. We'll make sure to drink some CDPs if we have the chance and to buy some as well to make up for not visiting the region.

On to the good news - that means we'll get more time in Burgundy and Bordeaux. We're going to spend 4 nights in each instead of 3 and we're going to spend Sunday travelling between the two so its really not much of a lost day (it also is an 8-9 hour train ride). While looking at the train schedules and really plotting out the actual itinerary, I was starting to stress how we'd have to fit in everything we want, so this will work out best anyway and give us more time in each region.

(sidenote:I'm actually not 100% sure our chosen Chateau Monlot has availability for all three nights - he hasn't responded yet- but that's ok, we'll deal with it. I'll keep you posted.)

In the meantime, I hit paydirt with a couple of Burgundy sites - the general Burgundy Tourism site and the Burgundy Wine Tourism site, which is most useful as it lets you search Domaines that also have rooms available. Oh, I was excited when I saw that!!!! I've already sent about 6 emails out asking about availability. Its about 3 in the afternoon there, hopefully they respond soon so I can finish my booking this week!!! Wish me luck!

Bordeaux - booked!

Bordeaux is booked. The night we arrive in France, we opted to stay in Bordeaux “city centre” (downtown) because there will be options for eating and drinking when we arrive. As I said, we planned on throwing in a couple of cheaper nights in our trip overall because we can certainly suffer through one night of a two star, no matter how bad it is. However, upon searching on Trip Advisor, Acanthe Hotel is a “top value” hotel and was ranked #21 of 120 hotels in Bordeaux and is 66 Euros per night for a double standard room, includes free-wifi in the room. The reviews were generally favorable and it appears it was recently remodeled (per a review in March of this year) so we’re doing it.

That night we’ll probably grab a late dinner and some wine at a wine bar, then in the morning we might hit the tourism board for some more wine or something before catching at train to our St. Emilion, where we will stay at Chateau Monlot. We hemmed and hawed about where to stay – we really wanted a working Chateau in St. Emilion and were hoping to stay under 115 E (Euro)/$155-ish per night. Our first choice, Chateau Franc-Pourrett, was already booked. Then it was between two, Chateau Monlot, 95 E /$125 per night and Chateau de Mole, 112 E / $150 per night, both include private baths and breakfast. It appears Chateau de Mole recently converted to a B&B – the rooms do look VERY nice, however, they don’t accept credit cards. I don’t have a problem paying for the room in cash, however, the owner wanted me to wire her the deposit or get a Euro cashier’s check. Fees for those run $25-45. Since its so new, I couldn’t find any reviews, but I was able to find some reviews on Chateau Monlot, which were very favorable, had pictures that were better than their website, and they take credit cards, both for deposits and paying. (Oh- and it’s a Grand Cru vineyard :)

So, all in all, because it would end being a difference of about $80 USD in fees and additional room costs, we chose Chateau Monlot. Because really, that’s $80 more in wine we can have!

(I apologize I don’t have a ton of info on place on the left bank side of Bordeaux (the Cab based side), we prefer the merlot based side. However, here is one we considered that was in our price range)

Oh and should you want to splurge, here’s another one in St. Emilion we considered for a brief moment, the Relais Franc Mayne – absolutely beautiful. But, its 170-240 Euros per night. We don’t have the funds for that and would rather have that extra money for more wine. However, should you be in a different situation, I’m jealous!

Help on info on places to stay in Bordeaux

Ok, so I've been struggling with figuring out how we're getting where within France. Mainly, how to get from train stations to a hotel or Chateau. The Rail system map makes it look like it stops at bigger cities only and while I can search for tickets and times, I have to know the station names. ARRGGGH.

So finally, I found a map that you can search and it lets you add in the option to see some "wine tastings" - usually these are Chateaux, possibly tourist boards. Here you go. Click in the child-like map and a new window pops up. After you check the grape box at the bottom, your screen will look something like this:

If you zoom in you can see the train track lines, which should help, albeit a little, to guide on how far you are away from the train stations and which towns/villages might be close to which stations.

However, it appears this is just for Bordeaux. But that's fine at this moment because that's what I'm researching. I'll worry about Burgundy when I get there. The map isn't perfect and I warn you, it will move to make room for those info boxes...BUT at least I can see if I want to stay at a certain Chateau that offers nightly accomodations, I can check to see the closest city. It helps, a little.