Bilbao is an industrial port city located roughly 15 kilometers/10 miles inland from the coast and served as our base for a few days to explore the Basque coastline between […]
Chronology
San Sebastián
It was quite the trip down memory lane for the kids and me as we crossed the border into Spain from the train station in Hendaye in France: we’d walked […]
Biarritz
We had quite the utopian existence for our days in Biarritz on the Basque Coast: sleep in, breakfast, morning swim, lunch, afternoon surf, afternoon Basque nibbles, dinner, sleep, repeat. Biarritz […]
Arcachon and Bordeaux
After a week in the wine country of Burgundy and the Loire the kids and I were about done with vines, so while Lisa hobnobbed with French winemakers across the […]
The Bordeaux Wine Region
Given how many Bordeaux wines I’ve made, I was very eager to learn more about the Bordeaux region itself. As I experienced in Chinon and Vouvray and Bourgogne and Chalon-sur-Saône, […]
Chinon and Vouvray
Chinon The vineyards of Chinon are primarily planted along the steep slopes of the River Vienne, with soils that are mostly gravel over Turonian limestone. Only 2-3% of the grapes […]
Tours and the Loire
It was a bit of a mission to get from Bourgogne and Chalon-sur-Saône across central France to the Loire Valley: the main high-speed train routes fan out from Paris and […]
Bourgogne and Chalon-sur-Saône
A trip to Burgundy has always been on my bucket list, and while our timing wasn’t perfect – it was a later vintage than usual so all of the small […]
Lyon
Lyon was a quick overnight stop for us on our way west, a way to break up the journey from Switzerland’s Valais canton to the Burgundy wine region. Often compared […]
Canton Valais and the Swiss Alps
After 34.6 kilometers/21.5 miles of darkness and ear popping through the Lötschberg Base Tunnel – which, when it was originally completed, was the longest railway tunnel in the world – […]
Gornergrat and the Matterhorn
The Gornergrat Bahn is Europe’s highest open air railway, stretching 9.3 kilometers/5.7 miles from the resort town of Zermatt at 1605 meters/5266 feet above sea level to its terminus at […]
Central Switzerland
It was a beautiful train ride from Innsbruck in Austria to the central Swiss city of Zürich: we passed through so many quaint mountain villages and some beautiful farms and […]