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In Which I Stay Remarkably Sober
August 26, 2007 by Mike
Bordeaux
Route: La Rochelle - Marennes - Royan - Mortagne - St Ciers - Blaye - Bordeaux
There can't be many better ways to spend a Sunday than riding through the beautiful vineyards of the Bordeaux region.
OK, that's not true. Stopping at the scores of chateaux that line the road offering 'Free tastings' would have been a distinct improvement.. but yr correspondent never drinks and rides. He just thinks about it, on a day like today.
But to get back to the point -- what a ride. The roads, the rolling hills and open fields, not just grapes but sunflowers, maize and wheat. The villages that string out along the east bank of the Gironde look lovely in limestone. They're tiny, most of them, and they would be even smaller if some of the houses, a surprisingly high percentage of them, in fact, weren't castles.
Over there, I spy a huge, grand chateau, inch perfect and fastidiously elegant, lawns clipped, a perfect symmetry in the array of windows, doors and statuary. But wait.. just around the corner.. there's one chateau, and there's another, nuzzling up to each other like a couple of stupefied drunks, leaning in, ready to crumble and unable to move. Walls have holes in them, farm equipment is rusting and looks untouched in a generation, windows are shuttered tightly shut. 'Chateau' is a slightly misleading term -- they aren't castles or mansions.. well, not all of them.. but essentially large and often prosperous farms. They just happen to farm wine instead of beef.
And what I'm seeing.. I can hardly believe my eyes.. is that some of them are *poor* farmers. Who'd have thought such a thing existed?
--
Some of the chateaux don't have free tastings. Instead, there are big signs saying 'Private' and 'No entrance'.
As I probably paid for most of them, at least indirectly, I think the least they could do is offer me a cuppa.
--
To Bordeaux.
I'm feeling slightly guilty that I missed some big cities further north (Hamburg, Amsterdam) on the technicality that they were not strictly BesideTheSeaside. In the same way, neither is Bordeaux -- it's no less than 104 kilometres up the Gironde estuary. But the estuary is huge, wide and tidal. Just north of Bordeaux, it splits in two -- the Dordogne and Garonne rivers -- but it's only on the northern outskirts of Bordeaux itself that a bridge crosses the Garonne. It seemed churlish to miss the chance to see this city (and drink its wine.)
And I am *so* glad I came.
First impression, as I rode into the city across a long, low bridge, with the mansions and town houses of the wine merchants stacked in beautifully proportioned, uniform rows along the riverfront: this is the St Petersburg of the south. Don't want to overdo it, but that's how much I like Bordeaux on first impression. It's a big, proud, confident, handsome place with a gorgeous hinterland.. and sunshine.
I'm staying for a bit.
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By karen With | August 30, 2007 11:33 AM
Have just read yr latest to all at no 3 - including Pat the new carer...
Pat says my goodness!!!!
Pa asks are there any empty chateaux available!!!
Ma says thanx for lovely phone call yesterday
ps she is getting on so well in her new motorised wheel chair!!!
KC says how amazing cos got a phone msg from Nick at xactly same time as you txted!!!!!
All jolly on the home front