Bordeaux, France

Bordeaux is a UNESCO Heritage listed port city that was once part of English ruled Aquitaine. Our interest in medieval history has been ramped up by the highly addictive BBC 'White Queen' series.
The city is best known for its wine and we booked ourselves into a tour of the local vineyards. The city also has an extensive tram network that reminded us of home town Melbourne; and the buildings follow a uniform architectural style as a result of large-scale building project overseen by Emperor Napoleon III in the 18th century.



Arrival in Bordeaux
On arrival at Bordeaux airport, we caught the bus to the main train station - Gare de Bordeaux. As the flight from London was less than 2 hours duration, we had plenty of time to organise a day trip for the rest of the afternoon.

IBIS Styles Hotel
At the time of booking our hotel, we remembered that it was part of the IBIS chain and also located right next to the station. With the assistance of Google Maps, we found ourselves at a Budget version where a helpful receptionist gave us a small tag for the bags and a map of the surrounding area. On walking back to the station, we noticed the more upmarket IBIS Styles building a few blocks further away. Had we left our bags with wrong hotel? We rechecked our booking and went straight back to to apologize to the receptionist (who had not asked to see our reservation before taking the bags) and transferred our luggage further down the road.

The main train station

Day Trip - The Great Dune of Pyla

By this time it was almost midday. To temper our hunger pains, we bought a quiche Lorraine and coffee from the French patisserie: Pauls and bought our tickets for the journey to Europe's biggest sand dune - The Great Dune of Pyla, about 60km from Bordeaux.

The journey involved about an hour long train ride to Arcachon, a touristy seaside town and then catching a bus to the dune with about 30 other tourists. On arrival, it was clear that most visitors came by sightseeing coach and the walkway towards the dune was lined with souvenir shops and cafes. There was even a 'flip flop' stall making money from a Chinese tourist who had worked out that 6 inch heels were not appropriate footwear for climbing up a sand dune.

Arcachon train station

Paul's quiches - neatly packaged in a take-away box

Climbing up or down
There was one conventional way to climb up the dune using stairs cut into the sand guided by a slippery chain railing.. There were two ways to come down. Either you used the stairs; or you could run/fall/roll down in the sand. We witnessed many teenagers and adults who preferred to go with gravity and trip / face-plant their way down the sand dune.

The chain stairway on the dune in the background

Walking along the top of the dune - no safety barriers here

Taking in the view of the Atlantic

A scenic view
At the top of the dune we were treated to scenic views across the Atlantic Ocean with the town of Arcachon visible to one side and you could imagine that America was somewhere beyond the horizon. Kids were busy throwing sand at each other and even dogs made it up the stairs to be walked along the dune with their masters.

Where forest meets sand and sea

The dune is still growing and will one day
swallow up the towns near the coast

Ice-cream by the sand dune

After spending around an hour on top of this sand castle, we headed down for an ice-cream. We selected a rum and raisin treat where there was no holding back on the liquor. Possibly the way the locals cope with staring at a mound of sand all day.

On arrival back in Arcachon we looked for a place to eat, but all the TripAdvisor recommended restaurants were closed for lunch service and we ended up settling for a frothy coffee that was served oddly with a straw.

Coffee with a straw - maybe the barista didn't understand our English

Pont de Pierre

Back in Bordeaux we looked for somewhere to eat that served local seafood specialties. We found a restaurant near the Pont de Pierre (Stone Bridge) and Le Porte Caihau -a medieval gate belonging to the old city walls. 

Le Porte Caihau

Pont de Pierre

Seafood dinner
The waitress at the restaurant spoke English and she guided us through the menu, including the house specialty - seafood bouillabaisse (stew made of shellfish and fish served with potatoes, garlic, bread and cheese). We also ordered a half dozen of large oysters as an entree.

Seafood bouillabaisse

Fresh oysters

Place de la Bourse
After dinner we walked a block up the road to take photos of the Place de la Bourse. This magnificent building faces the world's largest water mirror (3450 square metres). However, the water feature is also a tourist hazard as many accidentally step into it as a result of its reflective and invisible surface at night. We watched a group of uni students light a dozen or so paper lanterns that floated all the way over to the other bank of the Garonne River.

Letting the lanterns go

Place de la Bourse during the day

Here come the sprinklers

Saint-Emilion Wine Tour

The next day we walked from our hotel to the other side of the city center for an 8:45am start to a half-day winery tour of the Saint-Emilion region. This World Heritage Listed site is where the Romans first planted vineyards in the 2nd century AD.

A step back to medieval times

First Stop - St Emilion Town
Our tour group consisted of a knowledgeable guide and 5 other passengers. We made our first stop at the medieval town of St Emilion. This allowed us the opportunity to walk around stone buildings and see the famous cave of a hermit. Interestingly the streets were all lined with English cobblestones that were brought to France by ship and replaced with barrels of wine on the return journey. The highlight of the town was seeing the Monolithic church - carved out of solid rock in the 11th century, walking inside the structure is quite eerie, although no pictures were allowed.

Houses in St Emilion

The narrow cobble streets

The Monolithic church

Chateau Fonplegade

The winery visited for tasting was Chateau Fonplegade, once owned by the half brother and sister of Napoleon III. We did a tour of the wine producing vats and then tasted four different types of wine. 

We ended up buying a small waiter's friend (bottle opener with small pen knife) from the Chateau as a souvenir. Funnily enough, Mei had an inclination that this was going to cause trouble at the airport going through security. Sure thing, her hand luggage was pulled up for inspection and something in French indicated that all was not ok. However, when she pulled out the gadget (still in its packaging), the airport staff showed it to their superior who just shrugged and gave a short laugh and it was returned without question. Only in Bordeaux.

The vineyards of St Emilion

This way to the wine tasting

Wine from Chateau Fonplegade

Old and new - oak barrels next to concrete 'eggs'

The tasting sheet

A box of scents that are use for wine tasting games 

Tourist Train
We returned to Bordeaux city center in the early afternoon. This was good timing as a tourist train had pulled up in front of the tourist office and we climbed aboard for a very scenic almost 1 hour tour of the city.

On the tourist train

Remains of the city wall

An old church

Canele
After the train journey, we tried eating a canele, a speciality pastry to Bordeaux that is covered in a thick crust with a custard like centre; and also picked up a small bag of macarons.

A canele

Bag of macarons

Wrapping up our trip

We ate lunch at a small brasserie in a courtyard from the main road. There was little else left on our 'to do list' before we caught the plane home. To fill in time, we took a walk along the river where we ended up at the Bordeaux equivalent of a Direct Factory Outlet. We visited the Le Creuset factory outlet but the temptation to buy anything was tempered by the thought of having to carry the purchases onboard the plane and we decided that online shopping and delivery would ultimately win us over.

Lunch - French fries and confit duck

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