Stop WINING (Bordeaux)

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Bordeaux
Date:	25/06/04 (171 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bars, kebabs, wine

Disadvantages: The traffic

I spent a year living in Bordeaux as a European Exchange student (ERASMUS), and I found it a vibrant and lively place with fantastic restaurants, glorious bars and several huge parks. Not to mention a host of museums (including a Renoir in the main art museum), historic monuments and mind-blowing shops. AND it's only a short drive away from some stupendously huge sandy beaches!

So I get a bit narked when I read reviews, both on here and on Epinions (where this was originally posted), condemning the town as being drab and grey, and simply fixating on the wine. There is SO much more than wine to recommend this South Western French city!

At one stage, the 'grey' criticism would have been fair enough. The old buildings were blackened from fumes, and some streets looked quite depressing. However, around the turn of the century, there's been a massive clean-up campaign, particularly in the city centre, and many of the oldest buildings are shining as if brand new. I did a Final Year project (not, some readers will be relieved to note, a 'brilliant' one) on this restoration and the before and after pictures are so striking that I really must get round to posting them online one day. It was like being in a different town after they'd done each street!

Another possible reason for the negative reviews is that there are in fact two city centres in Bordeaux. The first is based around Place de la Victoire, a huge central square with a lot of gaudy bars and Pizza Huts. I'm imagining that this is the place most of Bordeaux's detractors visited. It's the bit that caters almost exclusively for the 'yoof market' and the blatant drug dealing is a real eye-opener. Just take a photo of the pretty arch and get the hell out, even walking slowly is enough to get people trying to buy hash from you.

The traffic is also a nightmare in this part of town, as all the buses in the world converge on a nightmare of l
ittle white lines that all the drivers ignore anyway.

However, if you wander up the ridiculously busy Rue St. Catherine (apparently the longest pedestrianised street in Europe), you'll come to another City Centre, with the theatres, parks, cinemas and statues. Place Gambetta is also near this area, with much nicer bars, and a side street full of the best kebabs I've ever had. I particularly recommend 'Le Quartier Latin' for great food and friendly service. It's a proper small business, I was there the day they had a massive fire, and they were trading again within a week! Hurrah for stone buildings!

Bordeaux's greatest bar, however, is actually quite close to the gaudier Place de la Victoire. The 'Alligator' is a great place, just disreputable enough to be really interesting. With pool tables on the first floor, live music, a great selection of beers and cocktails and friendly staff, the Alligator was my home from home. And you can sit outside during the summer in the pedestrianised area of La Rue Saint Catherine.

Being a student, I expected to be living mostly on the kebabs I mentioned above. And I did, for the most part. But there are so many restaurants in Bordeaux that the prices are extremely reasonable, and even top quality restaurants are within the price range of a student or backpacking tourist. Being a port, the seafood is obviously a speciality. I'm not a great oyster fan, but the mussels, prawns, squid, etc, were all fantastic.

As an example, the great little pizza place next to my house was offering huge 'Perigourdin' (with bits of wild duck and stuff) pizzas for about four quid. And that was eating in!

Despite the fact that I loved almost every minute of my time in Bordeaux, I am aware that it does have a few faults. The one you notice almost immediately is the traffic. Trust me, you're better off walking around the fairly compact city centre than trying to tak
e a car or the bus (although the huge hinged buses are great fun). It'll be quicker. Also, the city centre is almost unique in being largely intact following the war, but the consistency of the architecture can be a little tiring.

Oh yeah, the wartime history. Watch this. The locals will tell you that Bordeaux survived unscathed because it was 'of no strategic importance'. This is something of a lie, I mean it's an Atlantic port, for goodness sake! The real reason is that they collaborated their socks off, as it took surprisingly little research to conclude. But just nod and smile. I mean this.

There are a huge number of cinemas in the town. Around Place Gambetta, you have the UGC, the Gaumont, and the Jean Vigo (an arthouse cinema, although the distinction is less pronounced in this more enlightened country). There's another one, but it was a bit cack to be honest. By Pey-Berland, there's also Utopia, an old church that's been converted into a gallery and cinema. I spent an awful lot of time there as well, and you can thank these people for my film training.

I really would recommend at least one trip to the cinema, not only are French films often fantastic (if you go to Utopia this is guaranteed), but watching subtitled and dubbed films is an excellent way of picking up a language. I couldn't swear in French before I saw an early dub of Pulp Fiction...

If churches are your thing, there's at least two or three cathedrals dotted around. My personal favourite is in Place Pey-Berland, and is just next to the Town Hall, so you can cross two attractions from the list at once. While I was last there, the cleaning program stalled at the cathedral, and you can see the contrast between the bit they cleaned and the bit they haven't. It's really striking, although I think I prefer this Gothic monstrosity when it's covered in black sludge, it seemed more imposing.

Also around Pey-Berlan
d is a little English-speaking community, if you've had enough of speaking French for a while. An English language bookshop probably won't seem too amazing to you (although you might rethink that if you spend a year there), but the Connemara Irish Pub serves a great pint of Guinness, and you can wash it down with top-notch food, excellent live music and big-screen rugby.

The nightclubs are all down towards the docks. I wasn't a great fan of their music, so I stayed in the Alligator, but a lot of my fellow students thoroughly enjoyed the area, especially La Lune.

There is also quite a lot of wine about. It's very good stuff, but you should possibly bear in mind that it's just as easy to get it from the supermarket as it is to traipse out to the chateaux. Auchan, near Pey-Berland, has a particularly huge selection. I recommend 'La Perousse'. I mention this as I can't drive myself, I would have loved the chance to visit more chateaux!

I hope I've helped restore the balance of opinion on Bordeaux the town. It's not perfect, the traffic is a nightmare, but it does have a lot of atmosphere, and it's easier to cope with than a huge city like Paris. The people are friendly (don't mention the war), the food is cheap and plentiful and, yes, you can buy wine.

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