Bordeaux Bound!
Having enjoyed the heck out of Paris we woke up around 9 AM on Sunday, May 1st to head to Paris' Montparnasse train station for the final leg of our journey. Shy of the station not being especially well marked from our Metro stop it was easy enough and security to board the train was nearly non-existent. I had to rearrange a few other passengers' luggage in order to get ours to fit-no biggie really. About two hours later we arrived in Bordeaux's Saint-Jean station, again with nothing to note which is a huge testament to the smoothness that is European train travel.
I will say that the Bordeaux station isn't quite as tourist friendly as the Paris station was because we had some difficulty locating the rental car desk due to it being Sunday and a somewhat skeleton crew. Thankfully, I was able to find a service desk and used Google Translate (so helpful) to ask where the cars were. We rented with Alamo (which wasn't on the station's signage) and apparently they're the same as Enterprise/Thrifty (if I'm remembering that right?) and once we found the desk it was pretty smooth sailing. We were given a Dacia Sandero Stepway (which if you're a fan of "Top Gear" you'll recognize as a James May favorite) so I was pretty stoked. I knew going in it was going to be a manual transmission so I looked at this as an opportunity to re-hone that skill.
About 20 minutes later thanks to the modern marvel that is Waze we arrived at our flat on the Quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux where we were greeted by our AirBNB host (Jean?) who was awesome and very helpful. The place was centrally located, well appointed (Tracy fell in love with the espresso machine), and the staircase was considerably less "deathy" than our Paris location. Once unpacked we set out on foot to find some food and sights. We found the Carrefour City grocery store (which we visited frequently) had nearly everything we could want and that made us happy to have a kitchen to prepare some of our "own" food. The first night most of our photos were of the surrounding neighborhood and the Place de la Bourse. There was this really cool water feature at the Place de la Bourse and once it was dark there was a crew of guys who attached a pulley system to a light post to "water ski" in it of which I managed to capture some of their success...and wipeouts.
Saint-Émilion!!!!!!!
The following morning Tracy and I left the flat headed for Saint-Émilion, France in pursuit of two scheduled wine tastings/tours. We'd done some pretty extensive research on the matter and settled on two due to time constraints, the fact that they both spoke English, and looked AWESOME. We'd initially reached out to a third who normally doesn't allow the public but due to our wine photography street cred agreed to see us-sadly the time was concurrent with another tasting (and they were nearly 70 euro per person) so we scrapped it. Save for messing up one turn on the way out of Bordeaux the drive was pretty simple and a lot of fun. We arrived in Saint-Émilion at Château La Gaffelière around 11 and were greeted by our tour guide, Andrea (hope I spelled that right). The tour lasted about 90 minutes and gave us access to pretty much their whole facility. The fun fact about Château La Gaffelière is that the family history that started the winery gained nobility after The Battle of Hastings in the 11th century. The Chateau has been making wine-largely in the same family since the 17th century if my memory serves. Crazy. After an amazing tasting we picked up a few bottles and headed in search of some lunch.
Man, do I love Saint-Émilion and would even more if I spoke French...
Basically, if you envision the most picturesque French wine village it's Saint-Émilion. I can't rave enough about this place and when (not if) we go back to Europe we're going to spend some time here. Andrea at the Chateau mentioned L'Envers du Décor as a good place to eat and she was SPOT ON!!! In addition to some incredible food, beautiful wines, and top-notch service their decor was amazing!!! Tracy had a dish with a giant prawn (even though she's allergic-ish) because it looked so good. This was our most spendy meal of the the whole trip and I don't regret it. From there we goofed around in Saint-Émilion a bit (and even found a bottle of wine at a shop from our anniversary year of 2002) by shopping and taking some photos as our next stop was only 8 minutes away-or so I thought.....
You know it's a different town, right?
Our final stop for the day was Château Coutet-or so I thought. We drove in to a very slow looking Château Coutet and when we found someone and told them (in strained English to French) that we had a reservation she looked very confused-and did offer to give us a tour. A quick check of my email revealed that we were to go to Château Coutet in BARSAC, FRANCE some 50 km away. DERP. A call to the winery to plead my case and ignorance had us on the road to the correct location. Sandra was very accommodating and gave us a great tour. I really should learn French for next time.
Our last day in Europe :-(
I really, really, really, enjoyed our trip to Europe and I didn't want it to end as all things must. For our last day in Bordeaux we knew we wanted to do a bit more sightseeing and some street photography so we set out on foot trying to see what we could see and were not disappointed. We'd seen this really cool park with all these trees and wanted to get a photo of the two of us there and while we were walking there noticed that during the day (we'd seen it on Sunday evening) it was actually a parking lot and both thought it was a good idea as it provided shade to all the cars. We managed to find an empty area and got our shot. From there we headed towards the heart of the city to find sites and macarons...mission accomplished. The Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux was spectacular (and free) and the Bordeaux monument aux Girondins fountains were cool too. We grabbed some dinner at I can't remember where and my request was to do some long-exposures on the Quai des Chartrons with the trains.
After getting back to the flat we had a minor freakout regarding COVID testing and were able to figure it out and both tested negative. We headed to the airport around 11 AM after stopping downtown for some incredible crepes and the only thing to note is that filling up the rental car with gas cost about $8/gallon (so quit whining Americans). All in all this was an incredible trip-I really enjoyed Europe and can't wait to go back. Tracy did such a spectacular job putting this whole thing together-she's such an amazing trip planner and an even better companion. I hope this inspires you to do some travels of your own.
