Bordeaux

I had never visited Bordeaux before (or anywhere in the South of France) but had heard good things about Bordeaux from others. They were not wrong. A very pleasant city to wander around.

To start with Thibault came up trumps with the hotel - very close to the station, a modern hotel with all facilities and not too expensive either. 

One did have to walk through a short stretch of road that looked a little like bombed out Beirut, but one quickly hit the riverfront and then the old city. Which is pretty grand.

Yes centrepiece of this square is a bronze tortoise chomping on grapes. Only in France.

And surely only in France do you need posters reminding people not to pee in the street. (As we would discover later in out travels, they really do need the posters. Paris has more than a whiff of urination most places you go, and in the Pyrenees we came across a workman cheerfully peeing onto the road, not even trying to find a bush...)

Seemingly spending a penny has been seriously hit by inflation on the continent.

Hotel de Ville

These, extraordinarily, are the law courts

The Cathedral St Andre is pretty impressive

This shopping arcade seemed in the midst of renovation - it had no open shops

I managed to persuade my companions to actually visit a couple of museums/galleries on the promise that they were relatively small. One was the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in a handsome 18th century house

The other was the Musee des Beaux Arts which had a very nice, very manageable art collection consisting of a fairly broad selection of European art down the centuries.

And from the rear. Well he has a pretty good rear...

Although one has to say this is one of the dodgier artworks - monk rescues naked maiden, as they do...

Mind you young maidens could also apparently find naked men washed up on shore, and in their haste to rescue them a boob pops out. As they do. Evidently finding naked young people washed up on shore was quite a thing once, but not so much now. Probably global warming or pollution....

One of the most striking public artworks is actually this bronze head - a cut above most modern statuary. Interesting and disconcerting too.

If you are going to install a fountain you might as well make it a spectacular one. Don't spare the horses

A nice park

With bar headed geese

A nice shot of my companions, I think

The theatre

And we had to cross the river on a particularly fine bridge

To come to what was basically an arty retail centre in the ruins of a previous industrial quarter. A good and cheap bit of recycling.

And Bordeaux is every bit as attractive by night as by day.

And finally in praise of Bordeaux, or perhaps more in praise of Thibault's research, we certainly ate very well there.

Seafood is a speciality so we had to have one proper seafood meal - a jolly good lunch

A very good opening night's dinner - this was the best part - a bream ceviche - honestly it tasted better than it looks

And a truly excellent tasting menu at a Franco-Japanese fusion restaurant. It worked. probably best meal of our trip.