France… what does this fascinating country bring back to your mind?Maybe sipping a café au lait seated at a round steel table steeped next to a wall in an narrow rue… or the image of people walking by with their baguettes under their arms…
An elegant men walking by dressed in pastel colours wearing a beret in the most natural way you’ve ever seen?
Yes! That’s France… but there’s also a different side of this country, a bucolic experience in the nature…..
Bordeaux is a out of time city hiding in the south of France few Kilometers away from the Atlantic coast… a day here will be enough to experience the life of the city, explore its history and taste its flavor… but as dawn approaches, sit in your car, roll down the windows, put on some music and drive toward Dune du Pyla and get ready for a new experience….
If you like deserts then you’re probably familiar with the concept of mirages… a luxuriant pool of water surrounded by palm and tropical trees, appearing in front of your eyes, like out of nothing, a refreshing break from the constant heat of the desert… well, here in France you can experience that… But the other way around….
Imagine a huge spread of pine trees, a green and intricate desert, made of wild vegetation originating in the inland and spreading out to the coast, then, like out of nothing, like a mirage, a sand wall materialize right in front of you, blocking the view of the world behind it, climbing up is the only choice, but once on top something spectacular opens up for you:
Sand dunes, delineate with their smooth hilly profiles a small tongue of coast that seems to come out of nowhere… white sand modeled by the gentle breathe form the highest dunes in Europe.
Reaching up on the highest point your eyes would experience a breathtaking view of the forest eastward and of the rough Atlantic ocean westward…
While the sun make his way down in the water and the sky explode in a pinkish glow, you can take your pick nick basket, open a bottle of Bordeaux wine, few snacks and enjoy the show…
The next day brought us to S. Emillion, a town part of UNESCO heritage, here you can actually taste the real France, the narrow roads, romantic settings, vineyards and countless of wine shops where you can go tasting and buy some bottles to bring home with you…That’s what we did… but none of the bottles got home, we enjoyed them with a large selection of cheeses, baguettes, lavender honey while picnicking in a beautiful park……
Thanks to Sanna, Bruna, Kriistina and Massimo
