Thurs 24th Aug: Loire Valley ⇒ Bordeaux
It was a rather sultry morning for our last walk around Saumur and we actually had a fair bit of rain on the first part of the drive down to Bordeaux. It cleared up for the second past of the trip though and we then clocked 410 degrees for our arrival in to the city.
Our apartment was a 4th floor terrace that, thankfully, had a small lift and newly installed air conditioning although the a/c units were struggling with this extreme heat. I had sourced this apartment on VRBO / Stayz and the link is here. The apartment was a good size and clean but not quite as modern as we’ve enjoyed recently.
It was too hot to go out sightseeing, as it was still sitting up around 400 degrees, so we spent some time settling in at the apartment and doing a load of washing. The air conditioning units were not really making a dent on the heat in the apartment which was a bit concerning.
It was 6 pm before we ventured back outside and we tried to find a restaurant with air conditioning but didn’t have much luck so we settled on a wine bar that was a bit cooler inside than the ambient outdoor temperature. This proved to be a good find and we enjoyed a nice wine and charcuterie plate before heading home via a stop at the supermarket.
Our first impressions of Bordeaux have been quite mixed. There are lots of interesting cafes and bars near our apartment and we are right beside the magnificent 18th century monumental arch of Porte de Bourgogne and just a few minutes walk down from the 15th century Grosse Cloche, otherwise known as The Big bell of Bordeaux. However, there were some menacing-looking youths loitering just outside our apartment on our arrival and I’d read that other folk had experienced issues with this same situation. Our host said there is a huge population of Moroccans in the area but they’re harmless. Let’s hope so. Being back in a biggish city we’ve found ourselves back with the homeless and, also, street workers. It wasn’t quite the image I had conjured up when I had visualised our visit to Bordeaux but, there you are. The temperature is meant to drop tomorrow so, fingers crossed for a better day and better weather.
Fri 25th Aug
The weather was really putting on a show for us down here. I was woken at 4.30 am by loud cracks of thunder and bolts of lightning as an electrical storm passed overhead but, thankfully, this brought the temperature down to a much more tolerable level.
Our first activity for the day was a 10 am walking tour with Free Walking Tours Bordeaux and the starting point was a 20 min walk up along the River Garonne and we were pleased, when we stepped out of our apartment building, to see our street was clear of any early morning lurkers. Our guide for the tour was an Irish lad, called Caz, who had lived here for two years. He gave a great tour and took our fairly sizable group around the city pointing out key sights and provided a brief recap of the history of the city. He explained how the area had been settled 2,500 years ago by the Celts who, in turn, were followed / slaughtered by the Romans in 56AD but that it was the Romans who receive credit for this being a wine region as they were the ones who brought grapes to the region.
Caz explained there were three golden periods for Bordeaux:
- The Roman period
- The Medieval period
- The Half Moon period in the 17th and 18th century with the triangular slave trade.
Bordeaux had been a city in decline prior to 2007 though and was a rather unpleasant and dirty place. However, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007 and has come along way since that time with restrictions on development as well as obligations being placed on building owners; for example: to clean the external facade of their buildings every 10 years. However, we both think Bordeaux has even more room for improvement a would be happy to share our thoughts with UNESCO.
One aspect of our walking tour was that it made us realize that our apartment is rather well situated, geographically speaking that is, to walk to all of the major tourist locations but it just seems to have attracted a lot of immigrants who don’t seem to have employment as they just hang around the area. I had found it hard to find an apartment in Bordeaux within a reasonable price range when I was doing my initial planning and I suspect that you would need to pay a premium to stay in a slightly better area than where we are located. I did a quick search again today and found an apartment on AirBnB that is around $650 AUD per night that looks very nice and is one that I would likely choose if we ever returned to Bordeaux and this other AirBnB was around $500 AUD per night which also looked good. Both of these are located near the Opera area and that looked to be a good position to choose to stay, based on our walking tour today. For comparison, our current place is around $400 AUD per night. Caz explained that property prices have been driven high in Bordeaux since the city gained UNESCO listing in 2007 and, then again, after 2016 when the fast train (TGV) from Paris arrived to Bordeaux. It is only a 2hr trip on the TVG from Paris making this a weekend holiday destination for Parisians. Our tour finished up around 12 noon and we then walked about 20 minutes down to the market area of Marché des Capucins for lunch.The markets were rather ordinary but we found a great cafe next door, Le Broche, that was great. We then headed back to the apartment to charge our phones and have a bit of a rest.
Given our mixed views about Bordeaux, we have decided to cut our time here short by one day and will make our way down to Carcassonne before then heading on to Montpellier. The original plan, to drive from Bordeaux to Montpellier in one day, was always a bit of an issue for me as it involved a very long day of driving for Mark so this change helps to break the travel up a bit. We have filled up our remaining time in Bordeaux with a wine tasting class, a walking gastronomy tour and a full day tour to the vineyards of the Saint-Emilion and Medoc wine regions.
It was around 3 pm before we ventured back out from the apartment again and we went for a walk along the shopping strip of Rue St Catherine and also called inside to see the Cathedral of St Andre. Rue St Catherine had been touted as the place to go shopping but one end was simply selling cheap Asian plastic toys & clothing and the other end just had rather pedestrian type shops; Zara , H&M and the like so, it was a little disappointing. We then went to try out this bar that our guide had mentioned on our tour this morning, Bar a Vin, where students often frequent because of the reasonable prices. He mentioned it was popular because they showcase a wide range of Bordeaux wines and so it’s a good place to go to sample a mix from the different local wine regions. It was a venue that was in demand as we had to queue for about 20 minutes before we got a table. It was a fun afternoon of people-watching and sampling Bordeaux wines and is something I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Bordeaux. In fact, while we were waiting, our tour guide turned up with his girlfriend but there weren’t keen on the wait so they they left. I had a most delicious white wine which was the favorite for us both and at €2.50 per glass, or €5.79 per bottle, it really made a mark. We were pretty tired by the end of this tasting and so drifted home at the hugely late hour of 7 pm for an early night.
It had been a good day for us but we were still a bit disappointed with Bordeaux. The city was rather dirty and grungy and lacked the sophistication and the presence of edgy boutiques / shops / culture that we’d experienced at Lille and that we had been expecting to find here. There is a lot to do that is centered around eating and drinking but not a whole lot more. Our plan to spend 6 days here was, in hindsight, rather ambitious. I think a few nights would be well enough to experience what Bordeaux has to offer.
Sat 26th Aug
It was a glorious morning and just perfect for Mark’s bike ride and my walk. I explored across the Ponte de Pierre and along the harbor front where there is a beautiful wide promenade for walking along the river and it was just heaven at this early hour without all the other tourists.
Saturday meant market day so our first visit was to the St Michel farmers markets just around the corner from our apartment where we bought a halal BBQ chicken and some vegetables for a meal to have at home. We had a Bordeaux Wine Education experience later at 2.30 pm so decided, at the last minute, to take a 90 min Harbour cruise along the Garone River to fill in the rest of the morning. This cruise was with Croisieres Burdigala and the boat departed from a pier located just across the road our apartment. This is not an activity we’d recommend taking though as there is really not a lot to see from the water that you can’t see otherwise and, although the commentary was meant to be in French and English, our guide spent 90% of the time waffling on in French and, when she did speak English, we couldn’t really understand her. We did hear her say that Bordeaux had been capital of France over 3 separate periods but we’d hadn’t heard that before so not sure if she is correct or that we misheard.
Our boat tour finished near 1 pm so we headed back to the apartment for a a bit of lunch and to recharge our phones before heading to our 2.30 pm wine experience. This was with Olala Bordeaux and was a one hour introductory workshop about Bordeaux wines. Our host for the experience was Olivier and he was very well informed and gave a great wine education experience for us and the other two guests, Frank & Josie from the Netherlands. We now have a clearer understanding of the differences between the various appellations in Bordeaux and might even sound like we know what we’re talking about!
It was very busy on this Saturday afternoon in Bordeaux as we strolled towards home to wait for our dinner booking. It was 4.30 pm but the cafes, restaurants and bars were all full and so were the streets. We passed by a few interesting boutiques which was a first for us after two days of walking the city; they are definitely few and far between. You also don’t see anyone walking around loaded up with shopping bags at all; this seems to be a place where you come to simply eat and drink. Dinner tonight was at Le Chien De Pavlov which was just a 10 min walk from our apartment and the food was ok but nothing to write home about.
