Bonjour Bordeaux

We got up very early today, at 4.30 a.m. in order to drive through to Edinburgh and catch the 7.20 a.m. flight to Bordeaux. We went to bed fairly early and I got about seven hours sleep so I felt quite perky. All went smoothly and we caught a tram all the way into the centre of Bordeaux and after a bit of footering we successfully caught another tram which stopped just outside our wee hotel near the station. Soon we sallied forth into the very warm streets of the town and we liked what we saw; remnants of the city walls, narrow old streets, lots of cafés and restaurants. We walked to the Cathédrale de Saint André and had lunch sitting outside the delightful Café de France just across the square beside it: the personable waiter very much reminded me of Ragnar from the television series Vikings. With our coffees we were given two little Canelés de Bordeaux which are caramelised fluted cakes with a custard centre - yummy! Then we went in to the cathedral to see the stained glass and statues and paintings, we also looked at the flying buttresses, carvings and gargoyles on the outside - all very impressive although quite a lot has needed to be restored over the centuries so there are older parts and newer parts. In the original cathedral here, my favourite Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, married Louise VII of France when she was only thirteen years old. Off we went again through the hot afternoon to the Musée de Bordeaux which is about the history of the city and its surrounding area. It’s a good museum and we moved chronologically from pre-historic times and cave paintings, through the Roman era to the Medieval city and beyond. There was more to see but we felt sated by history so we headed back to the hotel, purchasing some wine for Jenn and Russ on the way. We decided to have dinner sitting outside one of the small restaurants near our hotel, and it turned out to be really good with a very friendly head waiter who told us that he is from Bangkok and the chef (to whom he introduced us) is from Columbia. We complimented the chef on his delicious food. We stayed sitting under the walnut trees for ages in the warm evening, chatting about all sorts of things. It has been such a good day.