But Bordeaux beckons
Friday 6 May 2016
We played 500 last night and had a good laugh. Wins all round.
Up early this morning in naïve anticipation that Hertz will ring with news of a new car waiting for us and a taxi on the way to deliver us to it. I said naïve didn’t I? At 9.30am I ring Hertz and get through amazingly quickly – only 3 minutes wait this time. I am told that they have not got us a car yet because the office does not open until 9am. When I point out that it is already 9.30am she acknowledges that she will check on progress, which she does and reports that they have not yet been able to find a car for us. “Please wait, I will ring back”. We wait. And wait. At 10.30am I ring back. “Please wait, I will ring back”. We settle in for a long wait. Which was sensible. To save you the agony of the wait, we finally get word that they have found a car for us at Bergerac Airport and that a taxi will collect us in 45 minutes. About 45 minutes later, now 11.30am, we receive a telephone call from our ‘chauffer’ who says he will be with us in about 45 minutes but he doesn’t know how to get to us. We agree that we will walk the 1km into Lolme and meet him there. Lolme consists of a church, and indeed exactly 45 minutes later our taxi pulls up next to the church and in we pile. Of course, the Hertz office will now be closed for lunch so Garry suggests that we go to lunch at a restaurant he and Di discovered when they were last in Bergerac three years ago, L’Imparfait, like we need more food. He rings and books a table for 1.30pm and we have a delightful lunch, but it was a shame to have to hurry in this lovely restaurant, clearly one designed for a long and leisurely experience. The restaurant calls us a taxi at 3pm and the same driver turns up and takes us to Hertz. Which is closed.
But, the Europcar operator next door points us to the carpark, where we find the detailer who opens the office, makes some phone calls for instructions, gives us an incident report to complete with regard to the previous car, and then finally gives us the keys to our new car, which is clearly a self-cleaning model, called a Duster. We need to be home by 5.30pm in order to freshen up and leave at 6pm to drive to Dany and Trish’s. But, we need to collect the pigeons en route. We pull up at the Boucherie in Beaumont du Perigord at 4.30pm and Di and Garry run in to do the explaining and make the purchase while I keep the motor running in my illegal parking spot, although that seems to make me more of a local. A few minutes later the pigeons are in the car, as are my travelling McDonald’s and we continue the drive to the Supermarche, as our provisions are dwindling at home. We may need dinner tonight, although we suspect that Dany and Trish will have prepared enough nibblies to keep us going. We get home at 5.30pm, do a quick turnaround and pull out at 6pm for our 6.30pm drinks. Their house, which they have lived in for 12 years, is a magnificent 15th Century mansion with grand rooms and lovely interior colour scheme, as would be expected by anyone who remembers Cleopatra at Blackheath. The garden, too, is expansive with beautiful plantings and lovely swimming pool, which they expect to open for the summer in about 2 weeks. They don’t have a vegetable garden, “why would we when we can get everything we want direct from the grower at the market?” They grow only herbs.
We enjoy a glass of rose, although as the driver I abstain, and a couple of savoury biscuits with spread. Once they learn that we are going to Bordeaux tomorrow and Di and Garry are going onto the Spain we get lots of tips where to eat. There’s that assumption again, that we need to eat more! At 8.30pm I announce that I wish to leave now, in order not to drive in the dark. It’s still light until about 9.15pm, by which time we are home and I am whipping up a risotto, which we really don’t need but this eating lark is a hard habit to break. In true French style it is after 10 when we sit down to eat, and once we have cleaned up we head straight for bed and our early start tomorrow, well early start French style.
Saturday 7 May
Our train to Bordeaux leaves Bergerac at 10.30am and we need to refill the car, return it to Hertz at the airport and take a taxi to the train station. We leave the house at 7.45am, Garry and Di for the last time, and head for the airport. We pull into the supermarket for fuel but the machine won’t accept either of my credit cards. We continue onto the airport and find a fuel station which actually has a human attendant and refuel with no problem. We return the car keys, call a cab and are at the station an hour before the train. A cup of coffee on the street opposite fills in enough time and we take an uneventful ride on the first train from Bergerac to Libourne, where we change for our train to Bordeaux. However we are sent outside to a bus. Not sure why, but we are bussing it to Bordeaux rather than train. No problem, it’s a comfortable bus and we have a different view than that from the train. We alight the bus at Gare Bordeaux which is surrounded by crime scene tape, as well as Police and Civil Protection officers. There has been a bomb scare, hence the closure of the station, but it appears to have been a false alarm. I guess France is ultra-sensitive now to the threat of terrorist attacks. Our taxi drops us at our hotel right in the centre of Bordeaux, we dump our bags and head off on foot. Oh my, what a gloriously beautiful city this is.
Di and Garry go to the Musee Beaux Arts while Cherrie and I show our uncultured streak by walking down to the River Garonne. We discover the markets full of the most wonderful French provincial furniture and mentally furnish our house and garden ten times over. Fabulous stuff. The ritual of luncheon is alive and well at these markets and the stall holders are all sitting down at whatever dining tables they happen to have for sale today, with family and friends and partaking in hot meals with wine. It’s a joy to behold.
We spend some hours in this area, wandering the markets which include trees, flowers and seedlings.
We could have bought any number of old, very old, olive trees
some cloud pruned, as well as some old grape vines, but we surmised we probably wouldn’t get them on the plane home
We wandered up the riverfront boulevard and revelled in watching children play on the water mirror, a tiled wet area where bare feet can kick up water and provide a fun frolic. Every 30 minutes it is sprayed with a light mist from below, resulting in delighted shrieks.
The streets are teeming with people but that cannot deter from the beauty of this city.
Even the electric trams are sleek, quiet and have no advertising on them.
And the chocolates are a work of art
Back at the hotel, we meet Garry and Di for a glass of wine at 6.30pm, a complimentary service provided by the hotel, before an hour later walking a short distance up the road to Le Chapon Fin, a renowned Bordeaux restaurant which opened in the 18th Century and which is highly recommended by Michelin. We booked for this months ago and have decided that tonight caution goes out the window and we eat, drink and be merry. Although it might be noted by the keen observer of this blog that restraint is not a characteristic which has featured widely recently.
We have the most fabulous night. This is true theatre as well as fine food. Great service, much made of the appertif champagne cart, the decanting of the wine, the service of the food but all without pretension. We order our entrée, main and cheese but resist the invitation to order dessert. Until we have finished our cheeses. It is then that we order our dessert, which we all agree the next day was a mistake. We should have left it with the cheese. We don’t need dessert and frankly it was too much. We just got carried away by the occasion, and what an occasion it was. A fabulous night, with 3 1/2 hours of pure indulgence.
Sunday 8 May
Today is another French public holiday. Ascension Day, although we all agree that for us it is Expansion Day. We walk down to the river this morning for….you guessed it….the food markets. Just for a window shop. We can’t get enough of these markets, with their wide selection of meats, fish, vegetables, charcuterie, cheeses. We completely understand Dany and Trish’s decision to buy from the markets rather than grow their own. We walk further up the river, and threw these beautiful streets, far less busy today. This is a clean, very cared for city, which we are enjoying very much. We have a light lunch in a square which seems to be entirely Spanish, and then we separate. Garry and Di in one direction, which we covered yesterday, and we in another. We all even manage an afternoon siesta, before once again meeting for the complimentary pre-dinner wine. We walk to a Brasserie recommended by Dany but all four of us have capitulated and confess to being fooded out. This might cause a seismic shift in the earth, but there, we have fessed up. One course only, not finished by anyone, and back to the hotel for an early night.
Tomorrow we bid farewell to the McDonalds who take their train to Spain whilst we take ours in the opposite direction to Bergerac, and to face Hertz and the enormous repair bill they have sent us.
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