Bordeaux Bordeaux Bordeaux

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Hello everybody!

We're in Bordeaux tonight. We caught the train from Paris at 10:10 this morning and arrived at a bit after 1:00 in the afternoon. Pretty good for what is usually a 7.5 hour drive. The trains are massive. We were in carriage 18, of about 20 I think, and each of the carriages are about the length of two of the passenger carriages in Brisbane, so it took us at least 10 minutes to walk along the platform to get to our carriage (although we did have heavy luggage...so that slowed us down). And it's SO fast!!! It kind of reminded me of that part in The Castle. You know when they're on the lake and the Dad says to "look at that", and the boy says "what?", and he points behind him and says "back there!"...loses something in internet translation...but it's like that, because when you see something you would like to look at, you'd better not blink!

We're getting good at finding our way places too...we didn't get lost once on our way here, and to get here we had to...

• Catch the metro from our place to Trocadero station
  
• Change to another line to catch the Metro to Montparnesse
  
• Find our way from the Metro Station to the Above Ground station
  
• Validate our tickets (surprisingly simple when you know how)
  
• Translate the French announcer for when to get on and off our train
  
• work out where our accommodation actually was
  
• Catch a tram to Porte De Borgogne
  
• Change to another tram to Meriodeck
  
• Get our room
  

And we did it ALL without getting lost, and only getting a bit cranky at the very beginning when we got our luggage stuck in a gate and a ticket lady got a bit cranky at me because I only gave her 2 euro for the tickets!

And then, after all that success, it took us at least 20 minutes to work out how to get out of the building we're staying in!

We were a bit worried about Bordeaux. Where the train station is, it's a bit seedy, and the hotel isn't in the nicest part of town, so we thought maybe that would be how everything is, but there's a section about 1km away from where we're staying that is the walled section of the city - and there's an ancient archway over it when you walk in. That section has all been pedestrianised now, so there's nice malls you can walk through that are really quite extensive. I forgot to take the camera so can't put any photos up tonight, but will make sure I do tomorrow. We're going to a chalet and a medievil village tomorrow afternoon, so that should be good, but we'll have a good explore in the morning to see what's going on around here.

Missing everybody but having a great time!

Hope everybody is well,

Bye bye

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Comments

[Ellie]

you're sooo lucky!
just read your entry about Bordeaux, and i totaly agree about the seednyness of the train station! i spent 3 months in BDX this year and I enjoyed every minute of it- i hope you will too! make sure get to see the Mirroir D'eau at Place de la Bourse- its fabulous on really hot days! if you happen to still be there during the Six Natoin Rugby,then u must pay a visit tothe Cock + Bull Pub just opposite the museum. even if you dont like rugby, the locals and the staff there will make you feel more than welcome and can help you with anything u may need- and the atmosphere there on match days is fantastic. St. Emilion is well worth a visit too, if you have time! Bon vancances!