Settling into Bordeaux - 27 October 19

Our first day in Bordeaux and we spent much of it sleeping. After rolling back to the hotel at 8:30pm (full disclosure, it would have been 8, but Bordeaux Marathon Relay cut us off from our hotel until we found an alternate route. I felt even more jet lagged at the site of hundreds people, decked out in lights running the streets at well past dark. Looks like a HUGE race though and really well organized so for anyone looking for an international race for their bucket list, you could do worse!) we tumbled into bed and slept the sleep of the worn. 11+ hours later (Legit. My Fitbit told me so.) we were up and ready to face...Well, what was left of the day.

We were supposed to spend the morning exploring the city then pick up the rental car (remember the train? Yeah, this was supposed to be the only rental on this trip) and make a leisurely drive to our base camp hotel in Saint Emilion. Instead, we had to hurry up and pack and I realized I had mistakenly set the rental pick-up to 10am so I had to hustle back to Gare Saint Jean to wrestle with yet another rental agency and then figure out where to stash the car for the day since adjusting the pick-up time would have more than doubled the cost of the rental. Fortunately, I was familiar with the train station layout, having circled it so many times yesterday, so the pickup was uneventful. I managed to navigate the 5 blocks to the hotel w/o incident and even learned that due to it being Sunday, on-street parking in front of the hotel was free. Huzzah!

By the time I had parked, Kris had been kicked out of the hotel room, so we hucked our bags to the car and prepared to explore the city on foot. We first headed towards the city gate that we had seen the night before. We then headed towards Chocher Saint-Michele (the spire is pictured below) where we found ourselves in the midst of a huge flea market.

Following my gut and the crowds, we ended up at the city marche. In the tradition of European markets, this puts even the West Side market to shame. Amazing fruits, veggies, meats, seafoods, and cheeses, I could have spent all day here. And in fact, we have a morning planned here later in the week - Specifically to dine on one of the seafood platters from a stall in the heart of the market. We settled for some window shopping and 2 of the best caneles I've had ever. Which led us to decide that we would say yes to every canele we saw in Bordeaux. I mean, it would be rude not to sample the local tradition, no?

Realizing that the day was slipping away from us, we hopped on a tram (Dear Cincinnati, if you want the streetcar to be successful, it needs to go more than 1 mile. And connect things. XOXO, EMS) and headed to the Cite du Vin. It turns out there's a fantastic food hall next to the museum, so we stopped for a light lunch of sardines and gravlax. Thus sated we headed to what I was worried was going to be a complete bust - a museum devoted to the history and making of wine in Bordeaux.

Turns out this place is amazing. They have used technology in a fabulous way to create interactive exhibits in 9 languages that don't feel overwhelming or confusing. We learned about everything from varietals to pests to soil types to pairings. And the whole experience is capped off with a glass of wine on their 8th floor observation deck. Really a great experience!

We ended up cutting our visit a bit shorter than I would have liked, because it was it was getting dark and we had an hour drive to the hotel. We walked along the river for a bit, then hopped a tram back to the train station. We saw a little shop selling caneles, so we picked up a couple for later. We found the car where we left it, unmolested no less. We threaded our way through Bordeaux and headed in to the pitch black vineyards. We fairly collapsed at the desk of the hotel and politely listened to the introduction from the receptionist. Kris did a phenomenal job booking us into an actual castle! Our room in the Hotel Grand Barrail (https://grand-barrail.com/en/) is in the tower of the castle! We found two caneles waiting for us in the room (are you sensing a theme?) which were good although not quite as good as the ones from the Marche. 

Tomorrow, we head into Saint Emilion to start the wine tasting! 

Cancelled train, a rental car adventure, and caneles - 25 Oct 19

We decided to return to France for our first vacation of 2019. Instead of Paris though, we decided to get out into the countryside a bit. Week 1 will be wine tasting in Bordeaux and week two will be spent in Brittany. It should be a good break for a year with a lot of change.

We left for France today. We decided to take extra precautions before we left this time, so we shut the water off to the house. Since this was the first time we've tried this, I of course had a 'Aw crud' moment halfway to the airport when I realized that I hadn't also shut off the gas to water heater. So, back to the house we went. Fortunately, we had planned on getting the to the airport fairly early so the unexpected detour didn't create a panic.

Check in at CVG was smooth and enjoyed an uneventful flight to Atlanta. Once we arrived, we headed to concourse E for a leisurely lunch at One Flew South in concourse E. We then picked our way to concourse F and prepared to board for Paris. While standing in line, I decided to check my email and found, much to my dismay, a notification from SNCF France letting me know that they'd cancelled our train tickets for CDG to Bordeaux. A little quick Googling uncovered that the maintenance workers were on strike.

So, cue standing in line to board a trans-continental flight, knowing that we're supposed to be in Bordeaux the next evening and having no way to actually get there. I pull out my Sapphire card and call the Chase travel concierge, hoping they could help. My first clue that this was going to go poorly was when my 'travel specialist' asked several times what a bore-ducks was and then where it was. He found a single flight with 2 tickets available, but at 900 euro each, that seemed like the last case offer. We had boarded the plane and were sitting in our seats when I was exclaimed 'So, you're telling me there are absolutely NO cars available to rent in ALL of Paris tomorrow?'

Fortunately, Kris pulled out his phone at this stage and started searching. With in 2 minutes he found a car for a one-way rental and reserved it shortly before they closed the boarding doors. So now all we had to worry about was whether or not the rental agency would honor the pre-paid reservation. Just what you want to think about during an 8 hour flight!

When we land in Paris, we decided to skip the arrivals lounge for a shower and change of clothes and head straight for the rental counter. After collecting our wine bag (now featuring a brand new 2" cut on the front pocket,) we headed to the Budget counter. The counter agent couldn't have been nicer; not only did he have our car, but he also offered us a life saving cafe.

We loaded our bags into our grey Peugeot 200S, and after a scant few hours of sleep on the plane, headed off in the pre-dawn dark for our 5.5 hour drive to Bordeaux. I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to get out of CDG. We ended up circling the rental lot twice before we figured out the correct turns (And this is with GPS.) Once on the highway though, it was smooth sailing.

We stopped at a rest area about 3.5 hours in for a snack and a quick nap and still managed to arrive in Bordeaux proper earlier than we would have had we taken the train. The downside was that finding the car drop off was 10x harder than getting out of CDG. I'm pretty sure I drove us around the Saint Jean train station 6 times (again with the help of GPS) before Kris spotted a sign no bigger than a sheet of A4 that pointed to the car return. We ended up on a gutted stone warehouse 2 blocks from the train station with a less than amused lot agent. Apparently he did not find comments about how difficult the lot was to find and that the GPS directed one to the wrong spot 'helpful.' Ah well.

Kris brilliantly booked a hotel mere blocks from the train station. So once we handed over the keys and collected our belongings, we stumbled to our hotel and collapsed for an hour of quiet relaxation. Realizing if we went to bed at 5pm, we'd be really screwed up time-wise, we decided to walk into downtown. It turns out that Bordeaux is the birthplace of one of my favorite confections - caneles. We stopped by Auguste K and picked up an assortment of flavors to try later.

We headed down the back streets to a square ringed in restaurants. A couple looked okay, but I spied a bistro down a side road that looked promising. We arrived at Le Michele a little early for dinner. So in the French style, we grabbed a table and a glass of wine each and collected ourselves. The people watching was excellent and despite our fatigue, time flew. We split a lovely onion soup; Kris had an entrecote and I had a duck confit. All three were excellent!

While it wasn't the first day in France that we had anticipated, everything ended up just fine. Hopefully tonight, we'll both sleep well so we can quickly get on local time. Tomorrow, we pick up another car and head for Saint Emilion.