Day 2 Bordeaux pre-tour

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Thursday, October 2, 2014

The bed was hard but it was roomy and Clay took the square pillows and I had 2 rectangular pillows so it wasn’t too bad. The room was comfortable and quiet until 5am when the trash pickup happened below our window. The bed is made up with a duvet and no top sheet so Clay struggled some with that I think. I know I did.

We were up before the alarm went off at 6am. We were down for breakfast shortly after it opened at 7am and we were not first. It looks like there are 20 people on this pre-tour. Breakfast was a combination of order and/or buffet. We both stuck with the buffet. I had raspberries, blackberries, a little glass jar of peach yogurt and a cold crepe with maple syrup and coffee. I also had a cup of coffee from the Nespresso machine in the room. Both cups tasted surprisingly the same which is to say, very good. Clay had a lot of different items off the buffet. He had a canele Bordelaise. They are a local Gironde treat that we had seen described and for sale yesterday but never tried. It was like a small sweet soaked cake of some kind. The description we read said orange blossom water, but it didn’t taste orangey, just sweet. Clay really liked it. It was interesting. They also had them out by the front desk yesterday afternoon, but we didn't realized what they were and didn't try them then.

At 9am we boarded the bus for the start of our touring day with local guide, Veronique. I don’t know if I said our Program Director is Monika. We did an overview on the bus of the old town area. Then we got out and walked to and around the St. Andre Cathedral and went inside. Eleanor of Aquitaine was married here! I think that was in the 12^th century?! We walked over to Place Gambetta from there and reboarded the bus. We then drove around on the other of side of old town for a while, then got out and walked to Grand Hommes Shopping Center for a “technical stop” or peepee break. From there we walked down to the Grand Theatre and got back on the bus.

It was about 11:30am now and we headed across the Garonne River. Veronique told us a cruise ship is expected to dock near old town on the river tomorrow. We’d like to see that! I checked the schedule and RSSC Voyager and Oceania Nautica will dock here at 6:45am but on the 4^th, not the 3rd. (There was a cruise ship docked there on the morning of the 3rd, but we didn't get a good enough view of it to identify it.) I had hoped we had a plan for our free morning tomorrow. Clay got a blister today and doesn’t want to walk anymore, I think. We’ll see, I have some Band-Aids he can use but I don’t have much else to help him. He decided last week on Monday that he needed a new pair of shoes to wear on this trip and it would be the only shoes he would bring. We bought them on Tuesday and he has been wearing them since Monday of this week. Oh, well. I guess if it gets bad enough there are plenty of pharmacies and shoe stores around and he’ll have to decide what to do. Back to the day’s events!

It was about an hour drive to St. Emilion. It was on a limestone promontory in the middle of miles of vineyards, cornfields and sunflower fields. It was impressive. Monika and Veronique guided us from the bus up and through the main street to Place Clocher which had a landmark clock tower on the edge of cliff.

Here is where they turned us loose for lunch and free time on our own. I voted to get sandwiches and St. Emilion macarons and have a picnic and sightsee. Clay ignored me and chose to sit at Chez Germaine on the Place under the tower. He ordered moules frites and we had much difficulty ordering me one of the 3 lunch specials on the sign boards they had sitting on either side of their umbrella-shaded tables. We thought we were ordering a sausage and French fries with a goat cheese salad and dessert for €16.50. (That is actually what we did order, it was just not a nice sausage, but a big disgusting one. In other words, it was not an ordering problem!) We both had a glass of white Bordeaux wine. Anyway, Clay loved his big pot of chorizo moules. I don’t think either of us loved the fries, too thick. The goat cheese salad was alright, but the sausage was too rustic. Meaning too fibrously part-y. It didn’t even taste like pork. It grossed Clay out, so that is saying something. So, we have learned that ette added to a word we think we know does not mean a small version of the known word. It means a nasty version of it! The dessert tasted like a panna cotta with some grape preserves over the top. We both liked it OK. The wine was not great as it got stronger the longer we sat there. We sat there a very long time. We wound up only having about 20 minutes to sightsee after our €50 lunch. So we basically had to stay on the same street for our free sightseeing time.

We went through the cloisters and the parish church from the 12^th to 15^th centuries. We walked down to a macaron shop and bought a small box (24!) of St. Emilion macarons. They are only almond flavor and a single cookie, not a sandwich. Also, we noticed all the shops selling them were selling them the same way, boxed with the cookies stuck on perforated sheets of paper like dot candies! Weird. They were very good though and we ate them all before we got back to Bordeaux. We went into the Tourism Office and I bought a tea towel with cross-stitch that looks like the Bordeaux apron we bought at the tourism office here in Bordeaux. Clay got a t-shirt.

At 2:40pm we met back up with Veronique and Monika to tour the monolithic church. There was a whole underground complex! We started in the Hermitage cave home of St. Emilion from I think the 8^th century or earlier. Then the 8^th century Trinity Chapel and finally the big 12^th to 16^th century underground church. Veronique said there is a bigger church like this in Ethiopia, but she only knows of 3 of these monolithic churches and 2 of them are in France. Weird. It was fascinating though. It made me feel a little dizzy and nauseous underground but that may have been my lunch and the wine.

About 3:45pm, we walked back through St. Emilion and got back on the bus for the short ride to Chateau Soutard. It is supposed to be one of the oldest wineries in the region. It was a beautiful place. We saw Merlot about a week from being handpicked and got to pick and taste one grape each. They were good. Then we walked through all the process in the buildings with steel vats and wood vats and wood barrels and finally bottles. Then we took a large glass elevator down to the tasting room. We tasted 2 reds and while we prefer white wines we do actually like some reds. Neither of us thought either of the very expensive reds we tasted were drinkable! I thought the 1^st one tasted just like cherry Robitussin (cough syrup). I told Clay and he nearly choked because he had a mouthful and that is exactly what it tasted like. There’s no accounting for taste though because after we walked back upstairs through the shop several people bought bottles. I bought a souvenir bottle stopper.

About 5pm we got back on the bus and started the hour drive back to Bordeaux. Monika made a very welcome 2^nd pass through the bus with bottles of cold water. It has been surprisingly warm and sunny here. It is not a humid heat and in the breeze and shade it can be quite comfortable, but I have the sunburn to show for it. We got back to the Hotel Burdigala about 6pm. We came in and killed some time to go back out for dinner after 7pm tonight.

Our goal was the Bordelaise specialty steak frites. We wound up at Le Bistro Regent which was one of the doner shop guy’s recommendations because I knew where it was and how to get there. Plus, I could find their website and we could eat a salad, fries and steak for €12.90 each. Cheaper than lunch! We set off walking about 6:55pm and when we got there we found it open. We went in and were seated by the front window. It was quite good. They had English language menus and the waitress spoke English, so that was a big help. I got my steak well done (it was butterflied) so I was a happy camper. Their menu said they had matchstick fries and they weren’t that thin but they were good, not thick and mushy (rustic!) like the ones at lunch. It was good and affordable. Thumbs up! 

We set off walking towards the river and the water mirror after dinner and after dark. We had skipped dessert at the restaurant hoping to find a chocolate or sweet shop open. We walked by a bunch of closed ones but finally near the Grand Theatre rediscovered the one Clay had been trying to rediscover. They were sold by the gram at €5. Clay thought this would be cheaper than the €1.35 each we had been paying. It was but, we did not love them. I thought even with the price difference that I would go without before eating them again. The texture of the cookies was not as nice and the texture and flavor of the filling was jelly-like and unnatural. Clay did not feel as strongly as I did but did agree that the best ones had been at Baillardran. And the best of those was the Speculoos. We rediscovered the original shop where we got that cookie and it was right past the Dijeaux gate. I expect we’ll be back tomorrow when it is open before we leave Bordeaux.

We did see the lights reflected in the water mirror after dark and it was just as spectacular as promised. We were glad we made the effort. After that we walked back to the benches on the Bourse and ate our disappointing macarons and then walked back to the room and now it is time for bed.

Tomorrow we have buffet breakfast again between 7 to 10am. Bags out by 10am. On the bus for departure by 11am. We will drive to the Bordeaux airport to pick up the rest of the tour group who did not opt for the pre-tour package and drive to Sarlat-la-Caneda. We will spend the rest of the time there at the Hotel la Madeleine. I hope it is as nice and conveniently located as this hotel is! We should arrive by 4 to 4:30pm and have the afternoon free to wander. At 7pm we are supposed to have a dressy welcome dinner at the hotel. We feel bad for all those people we are picking up at the airport! If they have flown from the US overnight and have to get dressed for a 7pm dinner after traveling all night and all day, well I couldn’t do it!

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