Advertisement
Published: June 23rd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Bordeaux scenes
The Place de la Bourse reflected in the fountain at sunset So ours first experience of Bordeaux was not so nice. We arrived Sunday night and it was misserably hot on the train and schlepping with our packs, to get to our tiny little room on the third floor wth no airconditioning. no kidding the hotel is done in a cheesy nautical theme like the loveboat or something. It looks like a cabin on a boat; two twin beds sqished together with about 10 inches around the bed to walk, a little counter along the far wall, and the bathroom looks like it is stright out of an submarine. Thats what we get for a 2 star hotel. Our neightborhood is not really pretty. Since it was so hot we decided to walk the city, we got off the tram in the first populated area we saw I think we ended up in the arabic section of town, we were litterally the only two women on the street. There were lots of men smoking on streetcorners. The city looks more medieval, than Tours, wich is bright and modern, it looks ancient and discolored with years of smog. The late sun with the dramatic shadows made the streets look kind of sinister. And
wading fountain
wading fountain the heat made the streets smell. So we had a bad first impression of the city.
It improved as we wandered into a nicer square and had a little dinner, I ate a panini type sandwich that said Andouillette I thought it was like andouille sausage but it turned out to be some chewy squishy part of the pork or beef Im not really sure. Tasted a little like ham. The panini itself was delicious, it had a creamy mustard sauce and sundried tomatos and roasted shallots, yum. The restaurance was connected to a cinema house, and we were a little scared to walking anymore, we picked a movie based solely on the poster. It turned out it was an Israeli movie about a palestinian woman who lives on the edge of the border divide who is trying to save her grove of lemon trees from an edict by the isreali military that she cut them down. It was all in arabic and hebrew with french subtitles, but the movie was so emotionally narrative that I knew exactly what was happening. Very sad.
Right before went back to the hotel we found a nice park along the river
Miranda in the mist
Miranda in the mist that has a big section in the square that pumps water out of the stone blocks so it makes this huge area thats about 2 inches deep water for wading and periodically it sprays a very fine mist which is really refreshing. The kids all stripped down to their underwear and were splashing around, I got some nice pictures with the late sun behind the mist. So that was the saving grace of the day. Then we just watched the french equivalent of 7th heaven on TV and went to bed.
This morning was much better, we found the tourist office and made a reservation for a wine tour then we went walking in the direction of the centre ville. We realized that we had been a couple of tram stops down from the nice part of the city. We ended up in the total opposite of yesterday. Wide boulevards with designer boutiques, Deisle; MaxAzria, D&G, Dior etc etc. We wandered to the archeological museums where there is supposed to be cool crypts but they were closed. so we went back to the river; which is a nice area and had lunch at a little outdor cafe. We split
fountain
a little boy rides his bike through the fountain a pizza and salad with much debate from the waitress. I ordered a claret, which is like a very tart lighter red wine almost a rosè that they serve cold, very refreshing. We are in the land of wine, so I have to try everything.
The wine tour was nice, even though we had to stoop to being real tourists, because we dont have a car, its the only way to get out to where all the vineyards are. The price was very inflated, but we're only in Bordeau for two days. Donc...It tooks us first to a larger scale vineyard a big Chateau producer, we got to see the whole process in all the steps from firmentation through to bottling. Then we tasted a white and a red. The second place on the tour was a little family operated place, we got to see the actual vineyard and the grapes. Such beautiful terrain, sweeping alluvial plains. The little old grandemare and grandpere of the chateau were so cute. We bought one bottle at each vineyard a white and a red. Very good prices. Wine is so inexpensive over here. The 2eu bottles in the grocery store compare to
this wine has lovely aromas
sampling a cote du Blaye white our 9.00 bottles here. So paying 6 euros is probably like paying 20. They dont name wine in FR by the varietal, the type of grape, instead the call it by the area, the region and the particular property. So it would be a Bordeaux, Cote Bourg, Chateau whatever. The French government believes that the soil of region makes a different taste so it is really a different wine, even if it is 1 Km over the border of Bourg into Blaye. It cannot be blended or sold as any other name. They take their wine seriously. They arent even allowed to irrigate their fields for fear of messing up the natural flavor of the wine based on sunlight, soil and rainwater. So we are having fun in Bordeaux. A bientot, Alliey
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0714s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb