St. Emilion to Sarlat

Saint Emilion was great. We spent two nights there in our little townhouse right in town. The view from the bell tower was speccy, with the town surrounded by vineyards. The tour of the underground churches was also spectacular, but we weren't allowed to take photos! We saw the little hermit cave St Emilion lived in, the slightly bigger chapel they built above his cave (with the best preserved 13th century fresco's I've seen) and then a huge excavated church (monolithic) from the limestone under the town (which is why there is a free-standing bell tower in the square). We also visited a local winery in town, which had atmospheric wine cellar, or 'cave'. On the way to Sarlat, we stopped at Bergerac which was interesting, with lots of half-timbered buildings (and 2 statues to Cyrano - even though he is a fictional character). Nearby we visited Montbazillac winery (they specialise in sweet dessert wines). They recently did major upgrades including a new wine museum and the visit was impressive - lots to see and we had a small tasting at the end. The Montbazillac chateau is very picturesque - purchased by the wine co-operative of the local area in 1960. They established themselves in 1934 and are going strong (see photo of garb of the time). We arrived in Sarlat late yesterday afternoon and had a great meal in one of the laneways of the old town - I was surprised how busy all the restaurants were. This morning we visited the market. It was huge and so busy - every shop and cafe/restaurant is open and packed. I was also surprised to find down our street, around the corner, there's a very large art instigation of an ice-cream man (he's related to the exhibition in the old church next door I believe).