This blog will be slightly different as the large chunk of my time was at a walking & intermittent fasting retreat! 

I needed to kill 6 days between visiting Abi in Sheffield and heading to Surrey for Bex’s wedding so I chose to invest in myself a bit (since I’m feeling a little burnt out) by heading to a retreat in the South of France. Here’s the link in case anyone is curious! 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed it. My goal was two fold: get a taste of walking the Camino to see whether it’s something I’d want to do in its entirety in the future & try to get a better handle of my eating habits while traveling. I always struggle with my weight/eating habits while traveling (annoyingly). 

The retreat delivered on both goals! I spent three days on the Camino, each day walking a different section. The first day I walked 8 miles from Eauze to Manciet. The second day was 9 miles from Manciet to Nogaro. The third day was a doozy – 19 miles from Nogaro to Aire-sur-l’Adour!! It was so grounding, calming, & refreshing to just walk for miles on end amidst all the vineyards. I enjoyed chatting with fellow Camino walkers as well. It definitely confirmed that it’s something I want to do in the future! Now just to find the time haha

I had never tried intermittent fasting before but the host explained it as basically giving our bodies time to process the food we eat & cleanse itself. When we are eating all day long, our bodies are just tirelessly trying to keep up with everything. I am no means an expert but that resonated with me. She had me start with 8 hours eating window with a 16 hour fast. I chose to eat between 11-7pm, but she said as life happens, you can always move this window around. For example, at the wedding (knowing there would be food later on and I’d be tempted to eat it), I ate between 1-9pm. I really like that it’s both structured but also flexible. I’m good at following rules, so if the rule is to stop eating after my window closes, I so far have been successful at doing so. Anyway, I’m going to try to keep this up as I continue to travel as I think this is going to work better for me than other strategies. 

Lastly, the retreat had 6 horses (3 beautiful black horse & 3 miniature horses). The one other person at the retreat was actually there for a horse meditation retreat (the host also offers this program). Because there were only two of us, we each learned about the other’s retreat. I did some horse meditation and he did some intermittent fasting – a win win. Always fun to try new things!

On to the actual touristy bit: I had to rent a car to get to the retreat, which I was a bit anxious for but it ended up being awesome! After the retreat ended I booked an airbnb in Bordeaux for 2 nights. I used the journey from the retreat to Bordeaux to visit a bunch of spots along the way. There’s no way if I didn’t have the rental car that I could’ve done this. 

The drive itself was a treat, just slowly meandering through small towns and hundreds of vineyards. My first destination was Arcachon. I strolled along the beach and bought a sandwich for dinner later. 

Next I headed to Chateau de la Brede. Just a gorgeous property and I enjoyed walking around the whole spread. Crazy to think what life would’ve been like here in it’s hey day. 

Lastly, I raced to Saint Émilion. Known as a very cute little town outside of Bordeaux, it was perfect for sitting on a bench and enjoying my sandwich while the sun set. Highly recommend a stop here if you are ever in Bordeaux. It’s a fabulous day trip!

Bordeaux itself just felt so French! As my retreat host said “it’s my favorite city in the world, it’s like how Paris was 20 years ago” Architecture was beautiful and the city felt quite clean. Lots of beautiful streets to walk around. 

I did a walking tour as an efficient way to learn about the city since I only had one day here. After a girl I met on the tour and I headed to lunch at Nom d’Une Crepe, since I couldn’t go to France without having a crepe!

I also treated myself to cookie dough from Be my cookie and a cookie from Pepite cookie 😝

Overall I really enjoyed my stay in France (as always)! Fun to explore a region I hadn’t been to before in a way I haven’t done before (a retreat). As I continue to travel and inevitably get burnt out, nice to have another option for mixing it up. I might have to do more retreats in the future 🙂