Bordeaux - The Grapes of Construction

The main focus of our visit was in fact to take a wine tour organized by the Tourism Office, and to return our rented car and go back to Paris by train. I don't think there is much else to do in Bordeaux, or at least I didn't see or hear of anything that seemed interesting.

Quick Tips:

If you are not travelling by car and you want to visit a chatêau or wine producer I highly recommend taking the Tourism Office tour, as it can be difficult to visit these places without your own transportation.

Try to stay in hotels that are close to the city centre (place Gambetta, rue Sainte-Catherine), the area is full of restaurants and shops and features beautiful eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture. The area closer to the train station is somewhat dodgy and is at least a 30 minute walk from the city centre. Don't be fooled by some hotel names or location, for example the Holiday Inn City Centre is infact a 30 miunte walk from the real city centre! Before booking check on a map to see how far a hotel is from the main tourist attractions.

Best Way To Get Around:

Bordeaux is in the midst of a rejuvination, resulting in endless traffic from all the construction and renovations going on. The only way to not get caught in traffic is by walking, good if don't have far to go. the local bus system is extensive and runs frequently, and taxis are plentiful. You should take the traffic into consideration when trying to catch a train, plane, etc.

Part of the construction includes the building of a streetcar system, which should be completed in two to three years.

Bordeaux has an array of hotels for every budget. I had made reservations before we left Canada, however it would not have been a problem arriving in Bordeaux without a reservation. The only time that you should make a reservation is during the annual wine expo in June - the dates vary from year to year.

I ended up choosing the Holiday Inn City Centre because it was advertised as a four star hotel in downtown Bordeaux with competitive rates (70-100 euros per night) and I could collect frequent flyer points. Hint of advice: before booking a hotel, check a local map to see exactly where it is in proximity to major attractions. Although it says on the Holiday Inn web site that this hotel is 0 km from the city center, it is in fact a 30 minute walk and 5 - 10 minute taxi ride to the center!

The hotel is typical of a chain property: walls and furnishings in generic pastel colors, pleasant staff in crisp uniforms, a restaurant that you would never eat in unless you were truly desperate, and modern conveniences including air conditioning and private shower/bath. The room was spacious for European standards, clean, and quiet. The view was okay, much better than those with rooms that face the front. My only major complaint was that the hot water heater for the hotel broke the second night we were there so I was denied one of my favorite pleasures, a frothy bubble bath.

If you intersted in staying close to the train station then this is an ideal choice; but because Bordeaux does not suffer form a shortage of hotels, I suggest you look for a hotel closer to the major attractions and rue Sainte-Catherine. Should your heart be set on staying at a Holiday Inn there is another one in the business district (Meridaeck), which is closer to the real city center.

We found this paella and tapas bar on a side street off the main shopping drag, rue Sainte-Catherine. With Bordeaux so close to Spain we figured they would be many Spanish restaurants in the city, and we were right.

When it comes to food I have a discerning palate (read: picky), especially with seafood. I love vegetarian or chicken paella, so when I didn't find one exactly like that on the menu I asked if I could order one that had seafood and chicken, but omit the seafood. The waitress looked horrified, and said this could never be done because it wouldn't be called paella if it did not have seafood. Not wanting to be the argumentative tourist, I settled for five tapas on the long tapas list, suited for all tastes. My boyfriend ordered paella valencia, and was served an enormous pan of fluffy saffron rice with every kind of seafood imaginable, chorizo sausage and vegetables. He was in heaven, and the plate was so full of food that he could only eat half. My tapas were also fantastic, hot and spicy enough for my taste. The best part of the meal was the sangria, a bargain at $9 a pitcher!

The restaurant was decorated in traditional Spanish fashion, with white stucco walls, dark furniture, and colourful artwork. Instead of having the usual mariachi band play next to your table and drown out any attempts at a conversation, contemporary and hip-hop(!) Spanish music played on their stereo throughout the night. I highly recommend L'Escorial for the quality of its food, prices, and atmosphere.

Aux 3 Arcades is located in Place du Parlement, a popular dining spot in Vieux Bordeaux. Several bistros face the square, each with enough space to accommodate 20-30 tables outside. Each restaurant serves more or less the same dishes (French) at the same prices, so it’s really up to the customer to see if there are slight nuances between the menus posted outside. As with most French restaurants, the cheapest and often best way to eat is by selecting from the table d’hôte. We chose Aux 3 Arcades because it featured two interesting selections on their table d’hôte of our favourite meats, chicken and duck.

We sat outside on their large terrace, covered with a tent just in case Mother Nature decided to rain on more of our vacation. My boyfriend chose duck magret in a creme de cassis sauce, while I had sliced chicken in tarragon sauce. Our first courses were solid starters, my boyfriend had a seafood salad and I had a warm goat cheese salad. Both main courses were very good, the cassis sauce tangy with just the right sweetness, the tarragon sauce thick but not too creamy. They each came with excellent thin crispy french fries, though the vegetables were limp and looked like they had seen better days. The desserts were very good, I had a pastry puff ball with vanilla ice cream smothered in chocolate sauce, truly decadent! We found the wine list a bit pricey compared to similar restaurants we had eaten at in other regions, $20-40 a bottle compared to $10-15; perhaps in Bordeaux they believe their superior wine must have superior prices? We ordered a pitcher (1 litre) of their house red and it was okay, definitely not as good as the wine we had tasted earlier that day on our wine tour.

This restaurant is a good choice if you are staying at a hotel in the city center or are exploring Vieux Bordeaux. Many tourists come to eat on this square so you won’t have a problem ordering in English; even though we ordered our meal in French, when the waitress heard us speak to ourselves in English she began to speak English. As well as the Place du Parlement there are many restaurants on the streets running off the square, some with menus more experimental then that of standard French fare.

My boyfriend and I had two major reasons for visiting Bordeaux: dropping off our car after a week of driving approximately 500km in southern/eastern/western France, and to visit a vineyard. You cannot visit France without visiting at least one vineyard, and Bordeaux is the crowning jewel of France’s illustrious wine regions. If you are traveling by car, you can create your own wine tour and book you reservations directly with the winery, but the easiest way to visit is to book a guided wine tour through Bordeaux’s tourist office.

A ticket for the office’s tour costs $26 and includes transportation by air-conditioned bus to one designated area in the region, a five-hour guided afternoon tour in English and French of a winery and local village (depending on what area you are visiting), and taste testings at the winery. The tour operates seven days a week form April 15-November 15, and Wednesday and Sunday only from November 16-April 14. They visit a different area each day. The tourist office’s web site is not only multilingual but informative and well designed, so if you are planning to visit in advance you should see where they are going on the day you plan to go. I highly recommend reserving your tickets at least on the morning you plan to attend or before, as there are only 50 spaces available. We went in mid-June and called for tickets three hours before, and the tour was sold out an hour later.

We took the wine tour on a Wednesday, which meant we were off to the town of Saint-Émilion. Our tour guide was a colourful woman well versed on wine making techniques and the geography and grapes of the Bordeaux region. We both speak French so we were able to understand her original text; her translations into English were fairly good, but there were some things she did not translate well or at all. We tried three of the winery’s brands, and all were very good.

The second part of the tour was a visit to Saint-Émilion. The town has the largest monolithic cathedral in Europe, built completely underground in the 9th century. Also built underground is the house/cave of Saint-Émilion, the man who founded the town. Note to females looking to conceive: apparently if you sit on his chair (there’s only one in the house) you will conceive shortly after; I didn’t take any chances and stood up the whole time!

Overall the tour is an excellent way to visit the famous Bordeaux wineries without having to book your own transportation or make the reservations yourself. The only problem with the tour was the wordiness of the guide: we were supposed to have a half hour of free time to explore the town, but she spoke so much that we had no time left and had to board the bus back to Bordeaux.