Bordeaux

 What a fabulous city this is. We wandered over the now familiar Pont de Pierre into the city centre. We jumped on the hop on / off bus and went for an explore. Our first stop was the excellent Musee D’Aquitane. A brilliant exhibition tracing the history of this place back to neanderthal man. There was a large Roman component to this exhibition reinforcing the importance of the strategic position of the port. There was a separate exhibition covering the period 1944 - 1954 documenting the liberation from the nazi occupation and chronicaling the post war period and the rise of first baby boomers. Some of this seemed familiar. So much history has taken place here including it being the 2nd largest market in France for the slave trade. An unhappy period in history for sure but they are fessing up to it even if not everyone agrees on the best way to acknowledge it.

We could have spent much longer here but we pushed on to the Cathedral St Andre. A magnificent structure with incredible artworks. There was a young man playing the organ, I thought I’d wandered into an Emerson Lake amd Palmer (google it) concert.  Very Gothic. 



 There are several other notable buildings in this area so we spent time just gawping. They all seem quite notable to us. 

We obviously spent a little too long gawping because as we headed to the bus stop we saw the bus disappear into the distance. Bugger. 

By now the temps were pushing 30 deg. We settled for lunch and then walked up to the next bus stop on the route. 


By now we were buggered and decided to ride out the rest of the route on the bus. One notable site was the WW2 submarine port built by the Germans. It took 2 years to construct with some of the walls 5m thick. So collosal is this structure it has been deemed impractical to demolish it. Even allied bombs couldn’t make a dent in it. It is now used as an exhibition centre but it is still a very ugly building. (Not like the PNCC building at all)

Nearby was another concrete structure built for the storage of fuel for the submarines. It never got used and is now a whiskey distillery. 

By the time we got off the bus it was nearly 5pm so we wandered along the embankment and found a little light refreshment and people watched for a while. 

Under the trees there was a group of people dancing, pretty impressive in the heat. 

Back to the hotel and an easy local dinner. The rest of the evening is planning. 

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