Bordeaux, France 2
It was already raining early in the morning on Day 2, which didn't stop our adventure!
First we visited a bakery called Boulangerie Louis Lamour. They just opened for the day, so many freshly baked breads and pastries were still on the cooling racks.
We picked up pastries and hot drinks and ate them in the seating area at the corner of the bakery. I chose a pain aux raisins. It was so delightful! Savoring buttery French pastries is always one of the joys of traveling in France. I forgot to take a photo of what J had but I think it was a chausson aux pommes (a classic French apple turnover).
After the lovely breakfast, we were walking around the city, slowly heading to Cité du Vin, a wine museum that opens at 10:00 am. We had over two hours to get there.
We found a bronze statue of the renowned Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) just outside the Église Notre-Dame de Bordeaux, a baroque and Romanesque-style church built between 1684 and 1707 on the site of a 13th-century Dominican chapel. I didn't know he escaped political persecution in Spain and spent his final four years in Bordeaux, where he died.
We explored part of the Jardin public, a large public park in Bordeaux was created in 1756.
I noticed a lot of buildings with jasmine planted near their entrances, and the flowers bloomed beautifully, casting a delicate and sweet aroma all around. We must have visited Bordeaux at the best time!
Our destination, La Cité du Vin, was getting close. The museum building was designed to unite elements of land (vine stock) and water (the river flows and the wine itself) while the shape is often described as an inverted carafe or a huge, swirling drop of wine. For me, it looked like a giant snail, though...
The museum takes visitors on a journey around the world of wine and the vine, from ancient times to the present day and over five continents, providing "interactive, individual and collective, educational, immersive, dreamlike, multisensory experiences." Perhaps it was the most digitized museum that I have ever visited.
I liked playing with a collection of glass domes that contain different aromas identified in wine. While many of the museum's exhibitions focus on watching and listening to digital content, enjoying scents was simple yet fresh.
Biscuits smelled wonderful!
My favorite exhibit in the museum was an interactive game to crush as many grapes as possible with my feet. I played it three or four times. I could have played it all day.
Our ticket included a glass of wine for the tasting. After walking through all the exhibitions, we took an elevator up to the 8th floor, where the wine tasting bar was located.
I gave J my ticket so that he could get two wines to try. He chose Cabernet d'Anjou and Haut-Médoc.
Santé!
I tasted both a bit. I liked Cabernet d'Anjou, a lovely sweet rosé, which tasted like strawberry. It was nice to enjoy wine with a panoramic view of Bordeaux.
We found a UFO over the water!
Before leaving the museum, we browsed the wine shop on the ground floor. We looked for the Cabernet d'Anjou that we just had, but we couldn't find it.
We were curious about the UFO, so we got close to it. Officially known as The Spaceships of Bordeaux, the flying saucer sculpture was created by British artist Suzanne Treister as part of the Garonne public art project in 2018.
We returned to the city center efficiently via tram, and had lunch at Mitsuba, a Japanese restaurant specializing in homemade Udon noodle dishes. I didn't expect to find authentic Udon in southwestern France!
For starters, we ordered assorted vegetable tempura and agedashi-dofu (deep fried tofu served in dashi sauce). They were nice!
I forgot to take a photo, but I think J had chicken curry udon. I had ume-oroshi-udon, chilled udon noodles with umeboshi (salted plum), daikon, and shiso. Overall, it was pretty good, although I couldn't identify the daikon-oroshi (grated daikon) in the bowl. I asked a staff member at the cashier, who happened to be Japanese, if they actually added daikon-oroshi to the dish. He explained they did add some, but the portion was much smaller than what you get in Japan. I guess that's the so-called localization. In Japan, oroshi dishes are meant to feature a generous, refreshing heap of grated daikon. This udon restaurant might have scaled back on strong, pungent, or bitter traditional flavors to better suit the palates of 'Bordelais.'
We wondered around the shopping area, checking out some shops.
The fairy-tale gate was the Porte Cailhau, a medieval city gate and triumphal arch built in the late 15th century to commemorate King Charles VIII's victory at the Battle of Fornovo (Italy).
We visited Pâtisserie S. to have desserts. I happened to know that the co-owner and chef of the pastry shop is Japanese, so it was nice to support her by enjoying her creations: one was Forêt Noire, a French version of black forest - a chocolate sponge cake and Tahitian vanilla Chantilly cream, all soaked in Kirsch syrup, with pieces of cherry and damson plum; the other was Moka - chocolate sponge cake soaked in espresso, a coffee crémeux and whipped cream, and is sprinkled with caramelized almonds.
The Bordeaux Cathedral, also known as St Andrew's Cathedral, was officially consecrated on May 1, 1096. The cathedral's architecture evolved over several centuries, featuring a mix of architectural styles, predominantly French Gothic with surviving elements of older Romanesque style.
Hôtel de ville, the 18th century town-hall building, was found at the west end of the square in front of the cathedral. We glanced at the building from the gate, where security guards were checking visitors.
While we were strolling along a shopping street near the cathedral, we found a shop selling Madeleines Lamothe of Dax. Those small, soft, almond-flavored treats were originally invented around the 1930s by Albert Lamothe, a baker in Dax, a spa town 88 miles (142 km) southwest of Bordeaux, and they quickly became a favorite snack of the spa town. I hadn't heard about Madeleines Lamothe of Dax until this moment, but because the shop was highly rated, so we tried one.
Honestly, it was quite sweet, rather dry, and lacked flavor. Maybe there is a way to enjoy them somehow. Dipping it in hot chocolate, for example?
To be continued...
