Saint Emilion Hotels

Saint-Emilion is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France. Saint-Emilion's history goes back to prehistoric times and is a World Heritage site, with fascinating Romanesque churches and ruins stretching all along steep and narrow streets. The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Émilion as early as the 2nd century AD. In the 4th century, the Latin poet Ausonius lauded the fruit of the bountiful vine. The town was named after the monk Émilion, a travelling confessor, who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock there in the 8th century. It was the monks who followed him that started up the commercial wine production in the area. Saint Emilion is a town 35km north east of Bordeaux, in the Gironde department. Saint Emilion is best known (indeed renowned the world over) for the vineyards which surround the town, Saint Emilion being one of the four Bordeaux red wine regions. The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Emilion as early as the 2nd century AD, and the town dates from the 8th century, when Emilian, a Breton Monk, came to settle in a hermitage carved into the rock. Saint Emilion itself is a very attractive small town, not to be missed if you are in the region. Built from, or rather hacked out of, the local yellow limestone, Saint Emilion centres around a large square, with a church on one side - a remarkable church, because it too is more or less hewn from the rock.