France – Bordeaux 6-10July 2018

   JULY 6, 2018 – Bordeaux  

Up for some breakfast and final clean up before meeting the taxi to the train station for our ride to Bordeaux, FR.

 It was a fairly short ride, about 45 min, to le Gare St Jean. Seems taxis don’t queue up in taxi stands here. The people queue up and every now and then a taxi appears to take the few at the head of the line. Then more waiting for another taxi!!

We made our way to our flat that turned out to be in a great location!!! We’re half a block from the intersection of Rue Victor Hugo and Rue Ste Catherine, the big shopping street. It’s fun to walk up and down and see all the people.

We dropped the bags, did a bit of unpacking and headed out in the direction of the tourist office to see what was available for a quick tour of the city.

We jumped on a 1hr tour on a bus to see the city from both sides of the river and get a sense of the layout. We also booked a wine tour for Sunday afternoon.

This is a nice city to visit and we’ll have more time than our last trip through of one night before the canal boat cruise.

JULY 7, 2018 – Bordeaux

Today was a day to explore and we decided to get the 13euro transit pass for unlimited use of the system including the ferries for the time we’re here. 

After some shopping and some lunch we took the tram up to Le Vin de la Cite. A museum to wine!!! In a very interestingly designed building that can be seen from many parts of the city once you get to the south side of the river bend.

A very interesting museum devoted to all aspects of wine and wine making around the world. There’s also a wine shop with over 800 labels and an enormous inventory of wines. We spent a bit of time in the boutique shop as well and finally found a bottle chiller/wrap. They aren’t that easy to find!!!

It took a little while to find the ferry terminal “near” the museum until we asked and learned it was behind the museum. Once again google was not helpful!

Nice ride on the ferry, we will try to do it a few more times.

JULY 8, 2018 – St. Emilion Wine Tour

We started with a walk in a new direction – to the south to see the large Capucins Market and the St Michel basilica. Happens that on Sundays there’s an enormous flea market in the plaza and there was all kinds of stuff and junk!!!

Then east to the river and a walk to find a bit of lunch before our 2pm departure to St Emilion for an afternoon tour of 2 wineries and a brief visit to the tiny town of St Emilion, population 2000+/- residents.

Our wine visit was to St Emilion and 2 chateaus in the Pomerol appellation. We learned that Malbec’s originated in this region before going to Argentina. However these Malbec’s are very strong and must be blended for good taste. The 2^nd chateau we saw mixes 5 grapes as their estate has those various soils to support. Some grapes want sand and some want clay, etc. They are on the top of a sizeable hill with great views.

Last year was very rainy and not a good year. In this region, if not all of France you can’t irrigate or fertilize and the amount of vines/hectare is controlled. So far this year is looking good with rains in April and lots of sun since. The grapes are out and nearly full size and will start to change color in 4-6 weeks. 40 days after that is the harvest. The winemakers fear thunderstorms with high winds and hail. They shoot fireworks/rockets into the clouds if hail is expected or reported. Not sure how that works!!

We drove by to see the Petrus chateau, though not to go in. With last year’s rain they threw the entire harvest away. Their bottles sell for more than $2000 and they don’t bottle many, they want to sell perfect wine!!

We were given a vintage card for the region – indicating which were good years and which not so.

Our arrival back in Bordeaux was around 7pm, so the hunt for dinner commenced. There was a big fire near the train station so we saw billowing clouds of dark smoke. Turns out a car caught on fire in a parking garage – don’t know much else but I would imagine a number of cars were burning. We found a nice little Japanese place for a change and had various concoctions of salmon and tuna.

JULY 9, 2018 – Bordeaux

One more day here – likely we’ll go to the maritime history museum. It’s been hot at night so it’s hard to sleep.  Slow start in the morning, also due to needing a new key. The main front door lock seems to have been tampered with and our key no longer works!!

Our host came along and gave us another key that worked most of the time we tried! We headed for the tram and then a ferry to find the museum. It was very low tide and we could see remnants of small ships sunk and left by the Germans when they departed Bordeaux. They hoped to block traffic on the river. By the time we got near to the museum it was time for lunch, again!! Nice river side place on the quay.

We found the very small maritime history museum that was devoted to the shipping families and their activities that shaped the economies of Bordeaux for centuries.

We then wandered some, in search of some ferry boat rides, only to find at one stop we couldn’t go in the direction we wanted. We trammed to another stop and waited 20 minutes for a ferry south as far as it goes and then we stayed on and traveled north to our stop.

Before heading for dinner we stopped at a quasi-reflecting pool. It’s about 1mm deep and periodically gushes mist. The kids love it.

It’s our last night here so we went back to our ‘favorite’ for a large meal of a big half spider crab and langoustines for me and oysters for Anne. Lots of concentration!  Little conversation!  And we spent nearly 90 min enjoying every morsel. Le Crabe Marteau.