Can you meet me halfway? Right at the Bordeaux-line
Having your best friend in the universe living 940 miles away isn't always easy. After having Laura live max 10 minutes away from me for most of our 14 year friendship, it was definitely an adjustment when she moved to Milan for her happily ever after 3 years ago. Even though I miss being able to see her as regularly, I think we've taken to the challenge like ducks to water. Weekly catch up phone calls, frequent trips for me to Milan and her back to the UK, both of us knowing every character in the others lives despite often having not met them before. And once a year we plan a girls holiday to somewhere new for us both. This year, we said 'how about we meet halfway?'. I have to admit that being able to say that to your bestie and the halfway point is Bordeaux? IS pretty chic.
Normally when I look at flights, I look for the place with the earliest flight out and the latest flight back to really maximise my time in the destination. With trips with Laura though, it's about looking for the destination that we can both get to from the UK and Italy on the same dates. Even though I didn't manage to get a morning flight, my flight times still weren't terrible and I landed in Bordeaux at around 4pm, getting to the city for about 5:30pm. After an excited squeal and a hug in the hotel doorway, we got ready to head out for the evening.
While I knew that Bordeaux would be a beautiful city, this trip wasn't a city break. We were there to explore the wine regions and the countryside, so our time in the city centre was actually pretty minimal (as you'll see). Because of this, we headed out nice and early on our first evening, to combine a little bit of a sightseeing with our dinner-and-drinks plans. We were staying just off the Place Gambetta, so we had a beautiful view of the Porte Dijeaux from our bedroom window, and we walked along the tram tracks until we reached the beautiful Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux. We wandered through beautiful galleries and past gorgeous stone buildings until we decided to stop off for our first drink at the Place du parlement. We were only having a drink so we weren't too fussy about the ratings of where we went, but it was a very cute place to stop and watch the world go by and we even had a street performance going on in front of us too.
Obviously we know by now that my first port of call, on holiday and in life, is to find my way to a rooftop bar. We figured it'd be perfect for enjoying the sunset; the perfect way to make the most of being out earlier than usual. Luck was on our side too as we were gifted with a truly beautiful sunset. The rooftop of the Grand Hotel was not only in a stunning location on a stunning square, but it was also a really cute rooftop with, randomly, a Costa Rican theme. I chose to stick more French though and went with a Lillet spritz after having a Kir royale at the last place. The perfect French aperitifs!
We'd actually pre-booked a table for dinner at a place called Papin, which was a cool cave place and looked like it had delicious food. However, when we arrived it felt very much like a bar and the menu was very small with a selection of a few nibbly bits rather than a proper dinner menu. Neither of us had eaten very much that day so we fancied something heartier and thought we'd be better off starting with someone more classically French. So we opted to have a cocktail at Papin and then walked over to LouLou, a very classically French spot overlooking the beautiful Saint-Pierre church. I LOVE to share and so I was very happy that Laura was also in a sharing mood all holiday. We split a duck and a slow-cooked pork dish, and then a cheese board and a chocolate mousse. Laura and I have always been insanely compatible, and I specifically mean compatible not similar. For example, we have opposite best sides for photos so we always prefer the same pics. And I believe in dessert then cheese, while she believes in cheese then dessert. So splitting these two meant both of us eating our half in our preferred order and then swapping plates. The yin to my yang.
The next morning, it was time to wave goodbye to Bordeaux already, after a delicious pain au chocolat, or chocolatine as it's named in this region of France. As I mentioned, the main purpose of our trip was exploring the wider region, so we headed to the station to pick up our hire car. Planning this trip was actually pretty overwhelming so be prepared if you want to do something similar. Or just, you know, use my itinerary. Bordeaux is such a vast area of wine regions, each steeped in their own traditions and history, and each famous for slightly different wines, so it can be very hard to know where to start. We'd heard of Saint-Emilion, which is a very famous village as it's medieval and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. So we knew we wanted that to be on the list. We also knew we didn't want to spend hours and hours in the car so keeping things localised was important. I also knew I wanted to visit regions that were famous for different grapes or colours of wine, rather than going to lots of places that were similar. The logistics of planning weren't made any easier by the fact me and Laura couldn't easily sit down and look at it together, but we're both excellent planners so after sending each other lots of voice notes, maps, links and itinerary ideas, we landed on the perfect plan. A visit to Barsac in the morning. A trip to Saint-Emilion in the afternoon. An overnight stay in a beautiful chateau in Lugon-et-l'Île-du-Carnay. Then a trip to the Médoc region on the Sunday. A nice little triangle around Bordeaux with lots of pretty stops along the way!
The scenery the second we stepped out the car in Saint-Emilion was pretty breathtaking. There were vineyards as far as the eye could see! Visiting any wine region in late August is actually the perfect time, something we hadn't even thought about when we booked. All the vines are big and lush and weighed down with grapes, as harvesting seaosn in most regions is September. By comparison, when I visited wineries in April and May, the vines were super tiny and only just starting to show their first green shoots! Aside from the amazing rolling green hills, Saint-Emilion itself was pretty but I wouldn't say it's any prettier than any other cute French village. We'd arrived at late lunchtime, so the first port of call for us was to find somewhere for lunch. My favourite of the ones I'd saved was L'Envers du Décor but Google reckoned it'd be closing in 5 minutes for their lunch sitting. Luckily, when we arrived they were still very much seating people and we got a gorgeous spot outside on their terrace. Again, we opted to share our food and went for a creamy monkfish stew, and a pan roasted chicken with ratatouille. We never nearly ordered 2 portions of fries but luckily we spotted some on the next table before committing - we got loads with just 1!
We had a little wander round the town after lunch and since it's approximately the size of a two pence piece, it didn't exactly take us very long. In fact, it took me about the same amount of time to eat this ice cream, as it did to walk the entirety of the town! For reference, the ice cream was one scoop of hazelnut ice cream, and one scoop of apricot sorbet. I loved this ice cream shop as they offered lots of weird and wonderful flavours, including olive oil, basil and earl grey tea!
Then it was time to travel to the most exciting chateau of all - the one we'd be staying at for the night! Like I said, it was very hard to choose because there are gorgeous ones everywhere. But my main criteria was it had to be a producing chateau (ie they needed to be actively making wine there), it had to be beautiful and traditional-looking (none of this uber modern rubbish), it had to have breakfast included and some kind of restaurant (LOADS of them didn't, or had ones that weren't open at the weekend), and it had to have a pool. The one that perfectly fit with all of this was Chateau de La Vieille Chapelle, and it was very reasonable at €150 for the night. The grounds were absolutely beautiful, our room had gorgeous high ceilings with wooden beams, and the best part was...
... the gorgeous pool! It was incredible and so lovely to have this with nothing but countryside as far as the eye could see. We'd deliberately wanted to arrive in the late afternoon so that we'd have a bit of time to relax and enjoy it.
What else could I have possibly worn for wine tasting in a French chateau, other than this beautiful red dress? The wine tasting started at 6pm and we were round the pool until approximately 17:55 so it wasn't exactly a high effort look. However, it was perfect for the wine tasting. This wine tasting was still only €10 but we could to try 7 or 8 wines (pretty much all the different ones they produced there) and the guy talked us through each of them and told us some of the history of the chateau. Anyone with a bit of French language or who can use their eyes to see the inside of the main building, will know that this is actually an old converted chapel! It was so lovely, although me and Laura both struggled to get used to this way of wine tasting where the person stays with you the whole time. Normally they do the spiel about the wine and then leave you to drink it but no, it seems the custom in Bordeaux is just for them to basically sit and have the wine with you!
It was golden hour by the time we came out of wine tasting; the perfect time to grab a spot in the garden, enjoy some food and wine, and watch the sun go down. We'd deliberately had a bigger lunch as we suspected the food in the evening would be more nibbly stuff, and we ended up with the perfect spread. Cheese and meat board, tomato and burrata salad, and a mini croque monsieur. We finished the evening with some gorgeous cakes that we'd bought while we were in Saint-Emilion - mine was a strawberry tart and Laura's was a fig tart. Delicious! Unfortunately, we (or I) were also the perfect delicious spread for the mosquitoes. I got absolutely eaten alive sat out there so word of advice, take bug spray!
Breakfast the next morning was just as amazing! I reserve the eating of stone fruits for exclusively when I'm in hot countries because all of them (bar maybe plums) are just dreadful in the UK. So this juicy peach was a perfect treat.
We were onto our third and final wine region while we still had the car, and so we drove over to the bottom edge of Médoc. Médoc is actually a massive region, it's basically the whole area from Bordeaux and the surrounding river, right across to the coast. If we were to go to the upper section, we'd have more driving on our hands, so we picked a happy medium and went to the Château d'Agassac. What can I even say about this chateau? It was literally a Disney castle. So beautiful and charming and it'd been there since the 12th century!
The wine tasting was in the old pigeon tower which was cool, and the wines were delicious. It was the same experience again where you drink them at the counter with the host, rather than a slow leisurely drink. They did actually offer picnics here which was a longer tasting with nibbles but you had to book those 48 hours in advance, so we settled for the regular tasting and then had a nosey round the chateau afterwards.
I need to start remembering this fun quirk about France; that it shuts down on Sundays, Mondays and sometimes even Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I made the mistake of going to Lille from Saturday to Tuesday and after our first night, it was a challenge every day to find gorgeous restaurants that were actually open, because all the genuinely amazing ones seem to take a half week off. It was kind of the case here too. Because it was a Sunday, a lot of the chateaus, restaurants and points of interest very closed. We passed through whole villages and towns that looked completely closed for business! As a way of life? I respect it, maybe even admire it. As a tourist? Omg, why is everything closed. We did find one of the chateaus open but they wanted €30 per person for their tour and tasting, and we suspected it'd be the same as the others we'd done. Fairly quick, fairly light on the wine, and definitely more expensive than just going for a glass of wine somewhere. So that's what we decided to do instead. We broke up the journey back to the city by choosing somewhere just on the outskirts La Ferme da Bruges, which had a lovely little garden that we were able to sit out in and enjoy our drinks. Neither of us opted for wine in the end! Laura got a Kir royale and I got a Lillet spritz.
By the early evening, we were back in the city, we'd returned the hire car, and we'd checked into our third and final place. We'd actually moved around a crazy amount for such a short break! This was the Hotel Bordeaux Clemenceau and it was very centrally located, just one whole square away from where we'd stayed on Friday night! We could've gone back to the same one of course, but if we had to make 2 separate bookings anyway then I figured we might as well try another one.
Since we were in the city for less than 24 hours, we again wanted to make the most of the opportunity to explore in the evening. So we chose a restaurant up in the Chartrons district, and had a lovely walk through the Place des Grands Hommes, round the Place Tourny, and past the Jardin public.
I couldn't have loved the restaurant we chose more if I tried. Le Mirabelle was perfectly French with a gorgeous terrace and an even more gorgeous menu. Laura and I both had the baby squid to start and then I had the steak frites, and Laura had the fish, then I had the giant profiterole and Laura had the chocolate mousse. I often forget just how much I love French food, because we don't have loads of French restaurants at home outside of fine dining concepts. But being in France reminds me that it's probably my favourite cuisine, falling just short of Mexican. When it comes to dessert though, French definitely takes the gold medal.
When in Rome, one must try the local delights. The thing to have in Bordeaux was a small pastry called a Canelé and it seems that Bordeaux has 2 rival chain bakeries that offer them. One was called Canelés Baillardran and all of the different shops had ratings of around a 3 on Google. The other was called La Toque Cuivrée and they averaged at a 4.5 on Google across their different shops. So you can guess which one I ventured into to try this cute little pastry! They were only 50p a pop and came in 3 different sizes. I went for the Goldilocks approach and chose the middle size. It was actually delicious, very different than I'd been expecting because I assumed it was like a little cake but it was more like a chewy custard. Definitely worth a try.
We walked down cute side streets until we reached the Porte Cailhau. Bordeaux seems famous for all its old city gates, and this one was surrounded by a really cute little square that we stopped off in for a coffee. We even had a Spanish guy singing flamenco music, which was beautiful and which I recognised straight away from the flameco show I went to Valencia.
When you visit any city, it's obviously vital that you hit up all the major monuments so we saw the Porte de Bourgogne and then ended up at the Saint-Michel cathedral. The whole area surrounding the cathedral is pretty vast and open with lots of restaurants so I thought it might be a promising place for lunch. But obviously with it being a Monday, loads of the places were closed! This also seemed to be a hotspot for global cuisine as they had Moroccan and Vietnamese and Italian and also quite a lot of vegan places too. I love variety... but at home. When I'm somewhere, I usually want to eat exclusively their native cuisine. Spanish food only in Spain, Thai food only in Thailand, and French food only in France.
Ironically, it can be argued that the dish we ended up choosing is actually Belgian and not French, but it's French enough alright!
We had time for one last little wander so we went to see the Grosse Cloche (big bell) and had a meander down the Rue Saint-James, which was very charming and full of cute shops and cafes. Then it was time to head home! Well, for me anyway. Laura's flight was 2 and a half hours after mine so she planned to stay in the city a while and find a nice place to read. Although she got more than she bargained for as her flight home got cancelled due to a storm, so she was actually there an extra 36 hours! That aside, we had the most incredible time and I loved Bordeaux both as a city and as a perfect base to explore the surrounding countryside. Me and Laura hadn't been to France together since our Paris trip in 2018 and it's nice to see that despite now living in different countries, our friendship has really only gotten stronger. I look forward to looking up what destinations we can get to from both England and Milan again next year!
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