Well worth a visit! (Bordeaux)

Member Name: liamb71

Product:	Bordeaux
Date:	16/08/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The town centre

Disadvantages: The taxis!

I have just returned from just under two weeks in Bordeaux, and found it to be a really pleasant place to spend part of my summer holidays. I stayed initially at the Citea Rodesse residence, and would suggest that you are much better off with a double studio than a one bedroom apartment (I stayed initally in the former and then in the latter when my family arrived midway through the first week), as the apartment was absolutely tiny, probably no bigger than the studio, but with a wall to divide it in two! It was not badly located, near the Meriadeck shopping centre and about a ten minute walk from the very centre of Bordeaux, but with hindsight I would probably have opted for somewhere else, and certainly if you are a lone traveller or a couple, there are certainly better options more centrally located and at a similar price.

Bordeaux itself is a beautiful city, with a particularly pleasant town centre crammed full of old buildings and picturesque squares. It certainly helps that the main two shopping streets, Rue Sainte Catherine and Rue Porte Dijeaux, are ostensibly off limits to cars (although beware of the odd one allowed to use them, and the scooters and bikes which are allowed and do tend to be a bit reckless in their approach to crowded pedestrian streets!)

There are numerous options for museum lovers as well, from the contemporary art museum (a bit thin on exhibits, but probably worth a quick visit overall) to the Jean Moulin museum, which is dedicated to one of the most famous names of the French resistance. However probably the biggest attraction in the town centre is the area in front of the Place de La Bourse, where every twenty minutes jets of water vapour rise from the pavement, followed shortly afterwards by water which pours from under the pavement to create a shallow paddling pool right by the riverside. Apparently this was originally intended simply for people to able to look at the reflection of the buildings in the square opposite, but it has become a very popular place for children to paddle, and plenty of adults join in too!

The quay side has been completely reformed over the past few years, with wide paths by the river which are ideal for cyclists, skateboarders etc, and indeed if you head north along the river from the town centre, there is a very impressive skate park and a row of high end and outlet shops right by the river. Heading south will take you towards the Pont St Pierre, and on a nice day there is no better view than the one offered by walking halfway across it and then looking back across at the buildings in the Place de la Bourse area.

There are literally ten of options with regard to eating out in the centre, and although my first impression was that it was more expensive than England, on reflection it is probably similar. I think it would be fair to say that there are very few cheap options (nothing akin to a Wethersppons, for example!), and I would certainly recommend eating out at lunch as a cheaper option than dinner - most places offer a set menu for between 10 and 15 euros. What you get for that can vary though, so I would recommend a wander round on your first day as some include, three courses, drink and coffee, whilst others may only be two courses without drinks. My personal favourite was Le Vieux Chaudron, which is in Rue Pas Saint Georges, and which offers an excellent three course lunch for 10.50, with one euro extra for a glass of wine. Dinner is slightly more, but only by a couple of euros. Those looking to drink lots of beer in bars will need to come with a healthy budget though, as even in the happy hours available, most of the English pubs which form the majority of that market charge between 4 and 4.50 for a 500 ml beer (not even a pint!)

Bordeaux is famous of course for wine and tours are available to a number of the vineyards, but I cannot really comment on that as I did not do any of them. However even though relatively uneducated in these matters, I can certainly recommend the Domaine de Chevalier white from the Pessac Leognan region, although it would need to be a treat as it might not cost you much less than the £40-50 per bottle minimum that it costs in this country!

For sports fans, most of the focus is on the city's football team, who are currently champions. However plan ahead if you want to go - I made the mistake of being complacent, and the game was sold out three days in advance! It was admittedly the first game of the season, but interest is very high at the moment, so it is better to be safe than sorry. Tickets can be bought at Virgin in the Place Gambetta if you do not fancy travelling out to the stadium, which is a little way out of the centre.

One final word of warning - should you happen to buy train tickets from Rail Europe and opt to print them out at the station in Bordeauz, you may be in for a nasty surprise! I was unable to do so on two separate occasions, and on the first of these I missed my train as a consequence! I would advise anyone taking this option to leave themselves plenty of time to go downstairs and queue for the ticket windows, from where I obtained my ticket without any problems on the second occasion. I have contacted Rail Europe about this, but I am not confident that anything will come of it!

Overall I would definitely recommend a long weekend in Bordeaux. Probably the only negative for me in my time there were the taxis, which are a complete and utter rip off, especially if you call them to come and get you from a hotel - I paid 17 euros for an 8-10 minute journey from my hotel to the station because of this! But the public transport system, especially the trams, is good and cheap (you can even get from the airport to the town centre on a bus which runs every 45 minutes and costs 8 euros, rather than pay 30-35 for a taxi), so you should be able to avoid this particular extravagance. Other than that, with plenty of flights from all over the UK at generally reasonable prices, it is certainly a destination worth visiting.

Summary: An excellent place to spend a long weekend