Blaye; its citadel, the cliff road along the Dordogne and Bourg

Just a short walk from our dock is the fort, built around an old village, monastery and its medieval castle during Louis X1v reign. The citadel was built to protect the region from invasion of enemy ships sailing up the river to Bordaeux. However it never needed to defend itself from an attack. Soldiers were the main occupants of this fort when the local villagers had to re-establish themselves outside its walls.

Nowadays the buildings of the monastery and soldiers barracks are restaurants and hotel accomodation. We enetered through the Royal Gate, viewing how the three stages of defence had been constructed, then walked around inside taking in various views of the river, old buildings and general history of the area.

After our tour of the citadel we boarded our bus to ride along the narrow cliff road with the river on one side and houses built into the niches of the cliff. Our bus driver deserves a medal for negotiating the huge bus along this narrow road which became almost inpassable by parked cars on the road. At one point where a skate boarding/go carting event was taking place, many oncoming cars had to back up to allow the bus to pass.

Further on from this picturesque route we arrived at the old river port town of Burg. A lot of these towns still have evidence of its previous Roman inhabitants. In this town the women's washing house still stands and can be used today to wash clothes. The countryside all around these little towns is covered in vineyards, and at this time of the year, the new leaves have just grown and the vines on some trunks are extending to around 30 - 40 cms. As we pass through the vineyards we see a chateaux (house) built on the property. Some of these chateaus are very ornate with spires and pointed domed towers.

One of the grassed moats around the citadel

Looking at the Royal Gate entrance

Lookout to the river

Monastery and hospital, now a restaurant and hotel

View of our ship from the citadel

Dauphin Gate

Narrow road along the Cliff Road

Part of the old river port town of Burg

Entrance to the woman's washing area

Inside the women's washing area. (clothes washing!)