We departed St. Emilion around 4:15pm and drove to our next hotel located in Listrac-Medoc. This time Google Map provided perfect directions and we arrived in exactly the 1 hour 5 minute time suggested. Perhaps I had mentioned to Caroline that today was our 24th wedding anniversary, and that is why she booked us into such a romantic French country manor house – because that is the only way you can describe Chateau Beausejour. With its lovely white limestone façade; built in the 1800’s, you are met at the door by owner Annie accompanied by her white Dalmatian dog. The house is divided in two parts with separate doors for the guest quarters (3 bedrooms) and the other side for the owners. Since no one else was there, Annie told us we had the whole bottom suite to ourselves. This included a living room with fireplace; bedroom; bathroom, and lovely balcony with table and chairs overlooking the garden – and all for $80E, breakfast included.
“White” is the first term that comes to mind in describing the house, with “romantic” and “feminine” as second and third. Obviously with an artistic and interior decorator background, Annie had decorated the house in French country antiques stained with old white finish and swaths of white filmy fabric and bows. Our bedroom had ballerinas painted along the ceiling with flowers flowing up the walls. Antique dressers; wardrobe, and even antique lingerie and old hats were used as decoration. Interior design books lay on table tops which lovely photos of other French country chateaux that matched ours.
It was fortunate that I always travel with music and was able to set up my MP3 player and speakers to add more romance to a room that ushered you back 100 years. With no TV, radio, telephone, Internet – my husband was at loss for a while. However, we unpacked with Annie’s help and then had a refreshing drink on our private patio overlooking the garden. I also recorded all of my winery visit notes into the MP3, which I try to do every time I travel so I do not forget the details of the visits.
Annie made us dinner reservations at Pavilon de Margaux, and we relaxed a bit before dressing for our anniversary dinner. The drive to the restaurant through vineyards and fields filled with yellow flower was beautiful – only 20 minutes to Margaux – but unfortunately we were not that hungry due to the large lunch. Therefore we just ordered an entree – to the obvious disappointment of the maitre’de – but both were exquisite. Mine was turbot wrapped in buckwheat pancake and incredibly moist and delectable. Mike had pork piled in artistic layers with potatoes and vegetables. To celebrate we ordered champagne. A lovely short dinner. Back at Annie’s we opened Barnard’s 2003 St. Emilion Grand Cru AOC and enjoyed a glass on the balcony before slipping into the big white bed with white lace sheets and down comforters.