Bordeaux

Bordeaux; In the heat

A day of mixed fortunes and opportunities. We are off to Bordeaux to see the city. Our kind hosts have provided us with an information folder on how to do things around here, so we take their advice on how to access Bordeaux. Now isn’t it strange when you follow a set of direction but suddenly nothing matches up. Getting in to the outer suburbs was a breeze. No probs. The plan was then to find the Park and Tram blue signs, follow these to a multi-story car park, park the car, obtain a car park ticket and in addition, a gratis tram ticket for each of us for the day.

OK< so we found one sign and the end of the tram track. That was it. There was car park, single story only, and it looked like you needed to have a card to enter. Emma spied a button. “Perhaps this is where you get a ticket?”  Nope, this is where you end up having a meaningless conversation with some frog over an intercom. Bugger. In the end we spy a car park with no obvious tow away signs and snaffle a car park. After a number of attempts at the tram ticket machine we end up with three one day tram passes and into Bordeaux we go.

First stop is the train station to book Emma’s travel form Bordeaux to Torquay. After a short wait, the girls get to the head of the queue while John waits patiently. Forty minutes later they are still in deep discussion with the lass behind the counter. Things must not be going well. It appears that Emma’s Eurail pass does not include the Eurostar between Paris and London, so 148 euros later, Emma is booked in.

We leave the station and pick up a carte de ville from the tourist office. Hunger is setting in so we go looking for a feed. Obviously the restaurants next to the station will be too expensive so we walk the streets looking. After passing a bloke pissing in the gutter we end up back at the station and take up the menu of the day in the restaurant across the road form the Railway Station. Glad we did. The food was gorgeous, washed down by a bottle of cold rose, and we were well feed for around 100 euros for the three of us. The wait staff were young, very young, and just pleasant and lovely.

Next we jump on a tram and head into the city centre. It is getting hotter and hotter. We need shade. We need water. We don’t need to get on a tram going in the wrong direction (John again! How has he managed to drive the team expertly around France when he cannot tell the direction of a tram??)

After a quick wiz through the Notre Dame of Bordeaux, we decide that we need to escape. We have plans to head for a local lake for a swim, so we make our escape back to the suburbs and our car park. You will never guess, but the car is still there. Not clamped, not towed, not vandalised.

So air conditioning on high, we head off for the lake. TomTom takes us through back roads galore until we do a right turn and there is the motorway. Or it would be a motorway if the cars were actually moving. The woman in front of us is attempting a three point turn so we simply drive up on the grass and around her. But that is where it ends. No-one is moving. We make about 20 metres in the next 30 minutes. Must be an accident up ahead but we cannot see around a large truck in front. We dive to the right to let an ambulance through but it stops 15 meters in front of us and turns off its lights. Zoot alors! What is happening? The temperature is rising and John is worried about the car overheating. The inhabitants quickly over rule him turning off the engine as they consider themselves more important than a dead engine. So be it. Eventually we all head off in a great rush with the only indication of a problem is a stretch of mangled Armco barrier. No blood, no cars, nil else to see.

On the way to the lake we need to get some provisions so a quick detour into a Carrefour. Emma now wants to take every French supermarket home. Rabbit!! We have never had rabbit. So quickly the ingredients for a rabbit dish are accumulated and we are back on the road.

Once again we seem to have fallen foul of our guide book. Yep, we find the lake after a couple of false starts, but there is a large sign saying “No swimming” Bugger, it is getting late, it is cooling down and we are hungry. So back home we go.

Lovely rabbit for tea and just goes to show, that even a day with mishaps still always shows a new challenge and opportunity!! Vive la belle France!