Bordeaux, France – Day 1 and 2

After leaving Bilbao we had a full day of sailing to our next port of Bordeaux. We had much calmer seas. The city of Bordeaux is about 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean on a very wide river, the Garonne River.

The landscape while sailing up the river was mostly flat, and often you could see vineyards on either side of the river.

To get the pilot on the ship, he was dropped from a helicopter. Unfortunately it happened so quickly there are no photos. The Pont Jacques Chabang-Delmas is the largest vertical lift bridge in Europe and was built around 13 years ago. Our ship docked right in the middle of the city center. There was another cruise ship docked in the same area and the riverboats were farther away from the town center, but only a short distance.

The city had a modernization renaissance about 10 years ago with many buildings built around that time. However, the old limestone buildings are still prevalent in the city center and are beautiful with intricate details and wrought iron Juliet balconies. They have developed an amazing tram system in the city center which is run on electricity and does not pollute. The city of Bordeaux has about 300,000 inhabitants and in the metropolitan area about 900,000 inhabitants.

The real reason to come to Bordeaux is the wine. There are 300,000 acres of vineyards, mostly producing red wines. Bordeaux region is also the 2nd largest region to produce rose’ wine. There are 65 unique wine regions in Bordeaux, with a total of over 6,000 different wineries.

Our excursion took us to the UNESCO village of Saint Emilion. It is about 45 minutes outside of Bordeaux city. The town originated in medieval times as a religious center. This city is on part of the Camino, which we had experienced when we were in A Coruna, Spain.

We heard a great deal about Eleanor of Acquitaine who was both the queen of France and then the Queen of England. Long story, look it up. She was the mother of Richard the Lionhearted and also of King John who signed the Magna Carta in 1215.

We toured Saint Emilion, which is a walled town and has an upper and lower town. The Romans first brought grapevines to this area about 2000 years ago.

Then we went to a boutique winery where we found out about their way of making wine. They had very modern equipment and only about 15 acres of grapes. They only produce about 2500 bottles of wine annually. At this time of year they are tying up the vine tendrils which can grow up to 3 inches a day. Later in the season they may prune some of the vine clusters to have “quality not quantity” from each vine. It takes 8 to 12 bunches of grapes to make each bottle of wine.

When we got back to the ship we walked around a bit, but rains drove us back. Later after dinner we did stroll along side the river.