Discovering Bordeaux: The City on the Garonne

Our final big adventure of the fall was our 12-day visit to the Bordeaux region of France and river cruise. After our wonderful experience last year cruising through the Rhine and Moselle river wine regions with Uniworld, we decided to sign up for the one-week cruise on the three rivers running through the Bordeaux wine country:  the Garonne, the Gironde (actually an estuary rather than a river we were informed), and the Dordogne. And we also decided to spend a few days in the city of Bordeaux itself before the cruise, and then a few days after the cruise on an estate near St. Emilion (on the so-called Right Bank). Needless to say it was a wonderful trip filled with amazing sights and, best of all, amazing tastes of both food and wine!

Welcome to Bordeaux!

From the moment our airplane landed, we knew we were in the right place, surrounded by all things focused on the very special wines of this region. What we had not expected was to find an absolutely beautiful city, and one which gives serious competition to Paris.

Saturday morning we took a bus tour of the city, which gave us an excellent overview of the city and a very informative history of this important but relatively unknown (to tourists at least) part of France. As recently as 10 years ago, Bordeaux had the reputation of being a rather dreary, traffic-clogged industrial port  city. And residents were effectively blocked from river access because of ugly, decaying and dangerous abandoned warehouses that lined the river front. Today all that has changed, thanks to initiatives of the mayor, Alain Juppé. 

Over the past ten years the city has been transformed into a sparkling pedestrian-friendly town with beautiful walkways, tram service, and culture. The riverfront is now the most attractive and popular parts of the city.  Much of this transformation has been at the initiative of the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé, who is now being discussed as a possible presidential candidate.  

Pont de Pierre

But the history of Bordeaux stretches way back in time, to both the Romans and to the romantic period of Eleanor of Aquitaine (whose biography I was reading during the trip--think of the film The Lion in Winter) who married Henry II of England in 1152, and thus made this region technically English until the end of the 100 Years' War in 1453, when it became France. 




 
While walking around the ,we got to see a While strolling around the city we came across a gathering of over one hundred classic Deux Chevaux cars ("Les Deuch's") which had come together from all over the region to help raise funds for breast cancer research. It was an unexpected treat to see so many of these fun cars from way-back-when side by side!

Bordeaux is deemed by many to be the world capital of the wine. Wine was produced here first by the Romans for local consumption and as long ago as the 8th century for export. Much more on this topic to come...

The Aquitaine region in which Bordeaux is located offers many gastronomic delights.  So we made sure to have dinner at one of the several Michelin-starred restaurants, Le Pavillon des Boulevards. Delicious food but a heavy emphasis on foam!

Bordeaux is also home to many other gastronomic delights including canelés--little pastries caramelized crispy on the outside, and soft and creamy inside. We sampled quite a few just to be sure we were well-informed tourists!

And, of course, we had to stop in for a first wine tasting in the Maison du Vin in order to begin our wine adventure. The Maison is a lovely building with stained glass windows and colorful murals dedicated to the production of the local wines.

The esplanade along the Garonne river is particularly welcoming and beautiful. Fountains, skateboard parks, cafes, shops and markets abound. In the afternoon it seems that all of Bordeaux plus its visitors were out strolling and rollerblading along the river.

The 18th century was the golden age of Bordeaux. Baron Haussman, a long-time prefect of Bordeaux, used Bordeaux's 18th-century large-scale rebuilding as a model when he was later asked by Emperor Napoleon III to transform Paris, which was then still quasi-medieval town, into the capital city we enjoy today.

AirBus 380 on board

With the redevelopment of the waterfront, both river and ocean-going cruise ships have made Bordeaux a destination. One of the most interesting developments is the new Pont Chaban-Delmas (named after a former long-term mayor of Bordeaux) bridge which raises and lowers its center to permit the transit of larger ships, as well as the passage of barges transporting sections of the AirBus 380, the marvelous two-deck planes that Air France uses for transatlantic (and other) flights.

Pont Chaban-Delmas

 Of particular interest to us was the Regent cruise ship, the Voyager, which was in port for a day or two.  For this is the very ship that we will be on in January and February when we begin our Asian cruise adventure.