Oceania has a great plan here: 3 days, 2 nights in Bordeaux with the ship docked in the center of the city. Bordeaux is a great place to visit with lots of things to do. Many of them involve wineries which matches Oceania's "finest cuisine" branding.
For our first day we took an excursion to Saint-Emillion, a medieval village in the heart of red wine of France. The bus is parked outside the ancient city walls and we walk in.
The town church, eglise collegiale Saint-Emillion
View of the lower city
Continuation of the old town wall that also served as a monastery wall.
Now it's time for the wine tasting. We visit the Cantenac winery being run by the fifth generation owners of the vineyard. In olden times roses were grown at the end of rows to either 1) mark who owned that row (not the case here, but needed in shared vineyards), and 2) roses are more susceptible to fungus than the grapevines and served as an early warning in case of infection.
On Day 2 the weather looked a little iffy. But we took our ponchos and the magic stick that repels rain (umbrella) and walked through the city. This is Place de la Bourse, the Stock Exchange Plaza.
City Gate, Porte Cailhau
City gate, Porte de Bourgogne
Basilique Saint-Michel
City gate Grosse Cloche
The pedestrian shipping street, Catherine St, the longest in Europe at 1.2km. The tile became slippery with a small amount of rain, which didn't last long
Day 3, let's visit another winery, Boutinet. This winery is owned by a family that bought it just 15 years ago, and raise their grapes certified organic. We walked the perimeter of their fairly small holdings which included grapevines, woods, and grassland for their sheep.
The tasting included three wines and tapas.
For the final afternoon we decided to walk about the northern part of the city since we went south the other day. This is the Monument aux Girondins, remembering the victims of the French Revolution.
This is a streetlight pole, but with the clocks at the bottom rather than up high. Unusual.
Some pictures from the sailaway along the river La Garonne just as dusk fell. This is Eglise Saint-Martial.
Riverboats dock just down from the cruise ships.
Pont Jacques Chaban=Delmas, a vertical lift bridge, in the up position so we can go under.
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