I didn't know the others but we had a very sweet and good sleep over the night. We had had our breakfast and were ready to go. Sidney asked us to look at some Chinese words on a painting he had, I checked those out and they were the year according to the Chinese Sexagenary Cycle. I pulled the Chinese calendar out from my iPhone and checked the exact year for him :)

We just talked and talked and Sidney shown us the photos they had taken when they visited HK some 20 years ago! The couple was so handsome and beautiful and they just looked like Robert DeNiro and Demi Moore! We just had had so much fun! So Sidney is also a FB fan and we had all already made friend with him! We said we would stay in touch and I wish that someday they would visit HK again so that we can show them around this small yet beautiful place.

We reluctantly left at around 10:30am for a beautiful wine town, Saint-Émilion.

Saint-Émilion's history goes back to prehistoric times and is a World Heritage site, with fascinating Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets. The town was named after the monk Émilion, a travelling confessor, who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock there in the 8th century. It was the monks who followed him that started up the commercial wine production in the area.

We arrived in Saint-Émilion and were looking for some wineries to go. We went to Petrus but it was closed for visit. We went to the closest winery which was opened but then the host could not speak English. There were so many wineries around and we finally stopped by Chateau Grand Barrail. Ann, the beautiful lady there told us that she just had a group and could only do a tour and tasting for us at 3pm. It was around noon so we decided to head towards the town to have a light lunch and came back.

We went to an outdoor restaurant just below the Monolithic church (right) carved from a limestone cliff. A monolithic church is a church made from a single block of stone. We ordered pasta, pizza and salad.

After lunch, we went up the hill. There were a lot of wine shops around. Saint-Émilion is one of the principal red wine areas of Bordeaux along with the Médoc, Graves and Pomerol.

We saw this small Château du Roy (left) from the hill top. This is the only intact keep in Gironde, and it used to serve as town hall until 1720. It is a massive construction, and the only remains of what is believed to have been the king’s castle. This fortress was the symbol of royal power within the walls of the free town.

While we were talking on the hill top, we heard someones were talking in Cantonese as well. We found a few girls sitting in a side-walk and they were also from HK! They had already been in France for 1 month! Wow...

It's almost 2:30pm so we went back to pick up our cars and drove back to Chateau Grand Barrail.

The tour started. It didn't cost anything which was quite rare. Usually these wine tour including tasting could cost around 8€-10€ per person. And it was not a complete wine making tour anyway. We went back to look at the barrels and that we were lucky enough that the chateau was bottling wine for aging. It smelt of sweet grapes and very aromatic. One could get drunk by just breathing.

We had a tasting of 2 different wines. Both from 2005 which were not for drinking but keeping. I bought 1 bottle of 2005 as well as Kevin and ours will be kept at his wine rack and we made a pledge to drink it 2 years from now :)

We left at around 4:30pm heading for the chambre d'hote, Les Roses d'Arès, we would be staying the night. It is in Arès which is a beautiful city by the sea.

There is not guest table offered in Les Roses so we did a bit shopping on our way for our dinner. We of course got oyster and roast chicken again. Smoked salmon, ham and wine of course. We found a bottle of 1998 Bordeaux red wine in that Carrefour. It was a pity that we just bought one...

We arrived at Les Roses at around 7pm. We checked in the beautiful beach house and then went out for a stroll on the long shore.

We had dinner by the pool. Drank and ate and laughed and chatted the night away. I forgot what time it was when we finally got to bed! Anyway.. bon nuit!