Art in the Submarine Base

It was our last day in beautiful Bordeaux and the temperature rose to about 37 degrees in the afternoon! We had breakfast sitting outside a café in the Place de la Comédie which was a great place for people watching. Then we had a stroll around the old town before taking a tram to the Musée Mer Marine in the old harbour area of Bordeaux. It was a great wee museum, all about the history of sea-faring in Bordeaux from pre-historic times through Roman and medieval times to the modern day. It was really interesting, with lots of model boats of different eras which I loved. It was a short but hot walk from there to the Bordeaux Submarine Base (Base Sous-Marine,) built by the Germans during the Second World War, which is now used as an arts venue. The concrete walls are amazingly thick which makes the interior fairly cool, and we watched two projections all around the walls of several huge halls; one was about Matisse and one was about Frida Kahlo. The submarine tanks are still full of seawater, twelve metres deep, so the projections were also reflected in the dark water which was very effective. I was sitting on the concrete floor watching the display when an official came up to me and told me to stand up; he explained that the designated seating area was in the next hall. I was so flustered when I was getting up that I managed to knock my sunglasses irretrievably into the water below. And there they must remain, along with the ghosts of Nazi submarines. The official pointed this out to me rather sternly, which I thought was a bit rich considering that it was at least partly his fault!
By the time we were ready to go back to the hotel I just couldn’t face the twenty minute walk and then tram ride back to the hotel so James very kindly ordered an Uber which was air conditioned and so pleasant, and it delivered us right to the door of the hotel. We had cool drinks in the bar and read our books for a while before heading to the airport for our evening flight to Luton.