Our first proper day in Bordeaux and we decided to head out to the coast and the Dune du Pilat. Having au paired for two months, visited the region with my family, and just generally having had enough of FU's shoddy road skills I appointed myself navigator and told FU to follow our car. Probably about 5 minutes after we'd left the other car lost us and as we headed west, they were following signs to Paris. Luckily I could give them towns to look out for and we made our way separately to the dune. On our way to the top LA managed to get this rather nice photo of me falling over. It was a shame it was quite overcast so we didn't get a great view of the bay but the surrounding woodland looked Amazonian. After having a picnic in the woods we made our way round the bay to Cap Ferret, just for a walk on the pier while the sun set. On the way home a tiny stone hit our windscreen and it was only when we arrived at the hotel that we saw an ominous crack in it. That evening a friend of GL's, CL, arrived to spend the last few days with us and the Italians cooked us pasta.

Friday we decided to spend in Bordeaux; so on our way out we had a look at the crack in the windscreen. Lo and behold, it had increased overnight. This sparked an hours argument over whether we should call Autoglass or try and exchange the car at Avis. By the time we got into town and had a walk round the park all the restaurants had stopped serving, so to try and decrease tension we all split up, with GL and LA coming with me. We also went to the Avis at the station to see if we could exchange the car, which we could easily enough for 35 euros extra. We ate some more Italian pasta at home before heading out for the night. Four of the group went on a hair-raising ride at the fair, before we did a quick shuttle run back and forth between two tram stops and then went to a bar. After it shut we went to a club (basically Point Zero, but a bit worse) where I had to practically physically assault an African gentleman to stop him from coming onto me. A little bit more arguing over how we were going to get home before most of us took a taxi at 5h.

Saturday morning was pretty much a write-off as we went to change the car and everyone else had a lay-in. We went to Saint Emilion in the afternoon, half for the town itself, half for the wine. We then had a picnic in a vineyard; something I'm not sure was legal but we just had to follow FU. After that we went to another vineyard to take a tour and (more importantly) a degustation (even more importantly) for free. I don't think the owner liked the look of us at first, but he soon warmed to GL's persistant questionning: "When did you start drinking?" and -"This is a young wine from 2009" -"Why do you call it young?" being some of the highlights. Some more pasta and several bottles of wine later and we were flat out.

We were supposed to check-out at 11h, but MA wanted to make sure we had enough time to visit Carcassonne on the way home (as we had to leave there by 16h) so suggested 10h. Predictably we left at 11h30. As we were approaching Carcassonne at 15h, some of us suggested maybe we didn't have enough time to visit, obviously not heeded. We then proceeded to park in what must be the furthest car park from the castle and walk 30 minutes to find it. We literally had enough time to grab a sandwich and a postcard before we had to leave. By this time people were saying we weren't going to make it, so we phoned Avis who said they'd stay open til 19h. Inexplicably, the southern foreign contigent amongst us then decided to have an appero in the car park while the English and Swiss were belted up in the car ready to go. They then took the wrong road and ended up in Montpellier 30 minutes later than us in the space of a 1h30 journey. We decamped to Mcdo (I just can't get enough) to sort out finances and finally arrived home at 20h30.

I don't want to say 'never again', but maybe next time a couple more maps and a few less highly strung members would be better!