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Published: June 15th 2014
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This is our final day of the cruise and we have a very exciting day planned. We took the optional tour today to attend a cooking lesson with a Michelin 3 star chef of the Bordeaux Grand Hotel. Only 12 participants. We took the city tram to the hotel in the city center with Katell the cruise director. The Grand hotel is the finest in the city. We were taken to the kitchen of the Michelin restaurant. We were greeted by the head chef, sous chef and pastry chef. We were each given chef aprons to wear with the hotel name and logo! How fun. They explained what we would be cooking and dining during our 4 hour lesson.
To start we each peeled and broke a large white asparagus in preparation for the soup we would make. The chef started a sauce by pouring a whole bottle of French wine, he added a fresh bay leaf and some other various herbs, butter and veal stock. Then he started to make the soup by cooking the asparagus we peeled, then he added chicken stock and a lot of cream and of course butter! Always butter! He also had a whole
fish the sous chef prepared. They minded Parma ham and added it to panko breadcrumbs to bake the fish. He had morel mushrooms that he prepared by thoroughly washing and squeezing any moisture, adding shallot butter, veal stock and of course BUTTER!
The pastry chef prepared a chocolate cake in ramekins and make a garnish of fresh raspberries, lemon zest and juice, vanilla bean scraping and very thinly sliced basil. He actually made the chocolate buttons he used for the cake which was very moist and delicious. One very unique feature of this restaurant is that they own one of the only 5 in the world of a "lobster press". It is custom made of sterling silver and presses a whole lobster to get the juices. The whole lunch was served in a beautiful dining room with 2 tables of 7 along with a great white wine. We sat with our friends and really enjoyed the beautiful meal and setting.
After lunch we wandered the streets of Bordeaux and do a little shopping. We found the tourist office and asked about our train to san sebastian. (Remember the French trains have been on strike for 4 days now).
He sent us to the SCNF office to ask and see what we can find. We walked down rue St. Catherine and located the train office. We took a number and waited for an agent. Finally we were called and as we inquired on our train Sunday from Bordeaux to San Sebastián he said "no, that train will not be running". We asked what would be our option and he said we could rent a car and he could assist as SCNF partners with Avis. So we explained our plans and he made the arrangements. We were so happy as we headed back to the return tram with Jane and Bill.
As we reviewed the car reservation voucher he provided we realized that he had us dropping the car off back in bordeaux rather than in San Sebastián. As Katell said "what a very incompetent man". Anyway, she called Avis for us and secured a nice car for a decent price. Yeah, happy again.
Our final dinner with our friends was nice but sad as we are all heading off in different directions tomorrow. Ward and Susan leave at 5am for flight to Paris then DFW and finally
to LAX. Bill and Jane are heading to Rome for a few days on Hop airlines. And we are finally certain that we are going to Spain.
We all had to make an early evening to pack and be ready to depart. Sad last night on the River Royale. Bonne nuit for last time this trip.
Review: this was a great cruise as we shared our experiences with friends. Most of the visits were great, some were forgettable and the food and most wines were memorable. Uniworld is a great river cruise line and really will do whatever it takes to make your journey memorable. This new cruise on the Gironde and Dardogne rivers and estuary is Locke free so they are very driven by the tide that is created by the Atlantic Ocean. Some departures were driven by the time of the tide so the ship could make it under certain bridges.
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