Market/Travel day - 2 November 19

We're headed to Nantes today. We packed up our room last night so we could get an early start. Our intermediate destination is the Marche des Capuchins in Bordeaux. I had planned this stop for today well before we left for France, but when we accidentally ended up here last weekend I was determined to come back for the seafood and the caneles.

Incidentally, I finally decided to pick up a set of canele tins in Saint Emilion last night. We walked past many stores in Bordeaux and St. Emilion selling the copper tins needed to make this pastry, but a macaron store, of all places, had the best prices I've seen anywhere (including online.) Macarons Ferlion makes macarons (the almond pastry, not the coconut haystacks) using a recipe that dates to the 1600s. The Grand Barrail puts a packet of two of these cookies on your bed every night and they are divine. Anyway, six of these tins are coming home with me and as soon as I can source the beeswax, well, the office should prepare for pastry overload.

Back back to the Bordeaux Market. We decided that since today would be a bit of a haul, we'd grab stuff for a picnic of sorts in our room in Nantes. Fresh fruits, baguettes, a couple of cheeses, and a saucisson. Really, all of this was just killing time until Chez Jean Mi started serving seafood. For a real introduction to the seaside, we got the Admiral's plate and feasted on crab, whelks, shrimp, and oysters. Washed down with a glass of house white, all I can say is YUM!

Having checked all of the market experience boxes, we sadly bid adieu to Bordeaux and started for Nantes. Fortunately, the drive was uneventful. Unfortunately, it rained, sometimes lightly, sometimes very heavily, almost the whole way. We managed to pick our way to the center of town and found a parking spot just in the nick of time. Apparently, there's a HUGE sci fi convention going on tonight, so downtown is bananas. We're going to settle in for a quiet picnic in our room and prepare for our trip to Carnac and beyond tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to exploring the wilder, woolier side of France on this leg, but I have a feeling we're going to spend much of our time in the rain from now on. Finger crossed for a break in the weather!

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!