Les monuments et vignobles de Bordeaux

So I finally managed a weekend trip out of Paris now that I am a bit more settled. I spent this thanksgiving in the southwest of France in a city called Bordeaux. Unfortunately thanksgiving does not exist here, so it was not a long weekend. On the plus side, with the amazing speed of the TGV trains, we traveled approximately 585 kilometers in just over 3 hours! And even though we left Saturday morning and returned late Sunday night, it didn't feel like we were rushed. In the end it was not so bad drinking wine rather than eating turkey.

When we arrived we checked into our hotel (right across the street from the train station) and headed downtown (centre ville) to go to the tourist office. As we booked our train ticket Friday night, it was a rather spontaneous trip and as a result we did not really have anything planned. Most of the wine tours were booked up (we first when to the tourist office at le gare (train station), but it was really small and we didn't believe her when she told us the only wine tour available for Sunday was the 96 euro one), but we found one that lasted a full day and was only 54 euros. The catch was most of it was a walking tour, but Abbey and I had no problem with that! To avoid confusion, Abbey is my good friend here that is from Newfoundland, Canada! She also enjoys traveling and going away on weekends, and had proven to be a good travel companion.

We booked our wine tour for the following day, and decided to book an hour bus tour. The tour was a good idea because, due to our lack of time and the size of the city, we would have had a hard time seeing everything in a day. The driver was borderline hitting on us (you cannot seem to go anywhere here without being hit on), calling us beautiful women, but he was not as pushy as many of the men you come across in Paris. There were headsets on the bus with commentary so people of the main languages could all listen in the language of their choice. We saw many monuments including arches, a beautiful fountain (currently with pink water to support breast cancer month), one of the three tallest churches in France, old bridges and buildings, and cobblestone streets. Bordeaux does not really have any modern buildings or skyscrapers which has preserved its original beauty.

Sitting on the bus before leaving on our tour. We were by far the youngest on the tour. With the surrounding areas of Bordeaux being wine country, I think it is a popular destination for older adults more than younger adults.

 

The above five pictures were all taken from the bus during the bus tour.

After our bus tour we decided to visit the contemporary museum. It ended up being a little too strange for our liking; the building was very open and contained a collection of very strange pieces of art. We were thinking it would be similar to le centre pompidou in Paris, but it was not at all. I think to appreciate contemporary art I, personally, would need someone to explain it all.

This is a view from the second floor of the contemporary art museum. It gives you an idea of what the museum looked like.

After the museum we decided to do our own walking tour to get a better view of some of the nicer and closer sites we saw while on the bus tour. It was a beautiful weekend in the south of France (like a late summer's day and apparently it rained in Paris); it was not too hot, but also not too cold. I think the fountain was one of my favourite monuments, especially since the water was pink and the statues were wearing pink sashes. On the tour we learned that at the time the statues of the fountain were made, many people did not like them as the figures were naked.

Me at the esplanade des Quinconces. It is the fountain monument to the Girondins, a group of moderate, bourgeois National Assembly deputies during the French Revolution. Twenty-two of these Girondins were executed in 1793 after being convicted of Counter-Revolutionary activities. The monument is 50m high and wascompleted in 1902. However, it was dismantled by the Germans in 1943 in order to sell the 52 tonnes of bronze that forms the monument. The restoration of the monument was not complete until 1983.

Here you can see the 52 tonnes of bronze, as well as me being silly. I have a year worth of pictures to take, so they can't all be of me just sitting or standing and smiling like a normal person. ;)

Here's the beautiful pink-ish water. For those of you who don't know any french the sign basically says: "Pink fills your eyes from the pink water, for the detection of breast cancer".

Me by the fountain. Here you can see the sashes on the statues above the fountain.

Had to jump somewhere; I think the jumping picture has managed to become my trademark.

One of the old churches in the city center of Bordeaux.

In the evening we went back to the city center to look for a pub to drink at. In the process we found a HUGE outdoor mall. For those of you from Ottawa, it was basically Sparks Street mall only wall bigger and with stores you would actually buy clothes at. Even the walkway between the two sides of the mall was smooth like the inside of a mall. We found a cute little pub and had a few pints (I have missed beer, I have only had a total of three beers since I arriving in France), and finished with mojitos. The pub had amazing mojitos with fresh mint leaves.

Out for beers in downtown Bordeaux. It was nice to be able to go out worry-free. Living in the suburbs is hard on the night-life as trains to Marly-le-Roi end at 1 am. The good news - I am spending less time out late and more time doing sightseeing! Plus, I will be leaving Paris rather frequently in the future.

Our wine tour met at 9:30 am outside of the tourist office. We drove for about an hour out of Bordeaux, and started with about a 2.5 hour hike (first up a hill) through a small town and local vinyards. The landscape was beautiful: open fields with churches (dating as far back as the 12 century) in the distance, as well as many castles dotting the horizon. One thing we did learn the hard way is that the word castle around Bordeaux does not necessarily mean a castle in the sense of Versailles (a big and beautiful royal home). Back in history Louis XIV needed money, so the wine makers were made to paid for their land to become "royal". Due to this "purchase", so to speak, the houses on the land were then referred to as castles. This is slightly confusing to uninformed tourists, as the wine tours say you are visiting castles, but when you see many of them, they just look like everyday buildings.

Our first site at the top of the hill we hiked up. This is a 12th century church surrounded by vineyard.

Abbey and I amongst one of the many vineyards! They went as far as the eye could see. It was definitely a nice change from being in crowded Paris.

Our guide explained a lot about the work involved when you own a vineyard and how the work lasts all year round. He owns his own small vineyard, so was telling us from his own experiences. For example he explained how much thought goes into planning which way to put the rows of grape vines. It makes a huge difference to the quality of the grapes (they need ample sunlight) and also important to allow for simplicity during harvest season (it had just ended about a week before we went).

As you an see in both the two plants, there are only two vines that form a shape of a V. There are many reasons for this, as the grooming grape vines is particularly important to the quality of the grapes and hence the wine. First, the... V shape allows wind to flow through the plant which helps prevent diseases due to the accumulation of moisture (for instance it prevents mildew). It also decreases the number of branches and hence the number of grapes allowing for a smaller crop, but of better quality as all the sugar will go into less grapes. The higher quality of grapes the wine maker wants will determine the length of the two branches coming from each side of the v. If they are making expensive wine, they will keep grooming the branches to be very short. If they are looking more for a large crop of lesser quality, they will allow the branches to grow to a greater length.

We also learned some history on these particular wine plants. If you look closely at the stump, it is smaller at the bottom than approximately a quarter up. That is because at one point in french "wine" history, an insect was introduced into southern France (how, he did not mention) that killed french wine plants. They could no longer plant them because the insects would continuously kill them. The only solution they could find was an American plant that they would plant and then graft on the french plant higher up (where the stump becomes thicker). For some reason the insects did not attack the American plants and as a result they could still grow the French plants, as the insects only live in the soil.

The area we were in was called "Entre deux Mers" or "Between two seas". This is one of the two rivers. The cool thing about it was that in the morning the water flowed to the left, but by the afternoon it changed directions and flowed to the right. I don't fully understand what happens to make that occur, but I thought it was interesting as I have never seen that before!

The first "Chateau" or winery we visited was 'Chateau de Marsan'. It is a big company the exports wine to many countries and I believe she said was 40 hectares. We had a picnic lunch (we were kind of disappointed in it as it was duck meat that was cold and you spread on bread and cold white asparagus, but apparently it's common local food) and tasted 5 wines. They were all actually quite good and were inexpensive (5-8 euros a bottle). Abbey and I both, however, preferred the second small winery and their wine there.

These are all filled with wine! The storage of wine seemed never ending; there were already bottled bottles that just needed labels, and wine aging in the barrels (they time they stay in the barrels changes the flavour).

This was at the second winery we visited that was about 20 minutes from the first. It was much smaller (only about 3 hectares). The piccture shows one of our guides (left) and the winemaker (right) showing us how to properly wine taste. First you look at the colour using a piece of white paper (you'd be surprised how much the paper changes the colour of the win). The more orange the rim of the wine, the older the wine. Then you smell the wine. You smell it once and then swirl the wine and smell it again (this helps you figure out what the dominant flavour is likely to be whether roasted coffee, flowers, darks fruits, light fruits and so on). Then you take a small sip and hold it between your tongue and pallet. While you hold the wine there you are to breath air in. The first time you do it, it shocks your system with how much stronger the flavour is. It was really neat to try, and you really can tell the flavour a lot better.

Abbey and I tasting our favourite wine. At this winery they have tasters come in when the wine is fiished and they pick the 10 best barrels. These are given a gold cap (and cost about 2 euros more a bottle). The rest of the barrels are all mixed together and when they are bottled they are given a blue cap. We bought the gold capped wine, as you could really taste the difference.

And that concluded our tour! After leaving the last winery, we took the bus back to Bordeaux and went straight to get our baggage from the hotel before heading to le gare and back to Paris.

It was lovely to get away for a weekend! I am definitely planning to do it again! However, with getting up at 4:45am Saturday morning to get to my train on time, and with getting to bed at 1:30am Sunday night, I am still tired today (Tuesday). I don't think I will be doing too many weekend getaways in a row! I think this weekend I will do day trips around Paris. The things to do around here are also neverending. I don't see myself getting bored over the year!

A bientot!
Canny