We took a flight over to Bordeaux (it's 6 hours by train because Lyon and Bordeaux are separated by a row of huge mountains; 45 minutes by air), and right outside the airport, we were greated by rows and rows of grape vines. hur hur.
Bordeaux has very nice architecture.
Notre Dame.
Some porte.
Look! I'm doing a Jesus-walks-on-water!
Mirror d'eau, a piece of flat ground with a shallow layer water to reflect Place de la Bourse behind (apparently some royal square in the past).
Statue at esplanade des quinconces.
Statue. Bordeaux used to belong to England for awhile, and this statue is a monument that has to do with remembering that or something like that.
Marche des grands hommes, very funny name for a market place. Translated, it reads market of big men.
We went to try out Lunchs, a specialty of Bordeaux. It's a small cake made of rum and vanilla. I didn't like it that much.
Taken outside the tourism office.
We spent the morning in Bordeaux walking around, and went for a vineyard tour in the noon.
The vineyard tour was in french and english; the guide would speak in french first, then translate.
Grape plants all around. There is no way you can see vineyards in Bordeaux unless you drive or go for a tour. The vineyards are not in the citycenter (duhhh).
The first chateau we stopped at was one that made white wines in Sauternes.
Wine degustation. The white wine was a little too sweet for my liking.
Wine cave. For this particular white wine, they used the rot of the grapes (called noble rot) to make it. So they have many harvests to cut the rot out. And taste it well, you have to gurgle the wine in your mouth before swallowing. haha!
A private Chateau we passed by. Some royalty lives there still.
The second chateau we went to was at Graves. We tried red wines from different years there.
I liked the tour pretty much because I learnt some stuff about AOC wines there. Plus, it was quite cheap for students (11 euros). I wanna go to Pomerol and Pauillac next time I come here. ;)
After the tour, we went to a wine shop because fengxue wanted to buy wine for her friend. She managed to get a 2000 red wine for 13 euros! I didn't get anything because I felt I could get cheaper (but younger) wines in the supermarket that taste good too.
Old wines are actually not THAT expensive here. A 1967 Lafite 1er cru classe only cost 620 euros, a 1968 (crap year) cheval blanc 1er grand cru classe costs only 600 euros. I also saw another 1929 (fantastic year) 4ieme cru classe (crap class) wine going for 500 euros! Cheap cheap!
Bordeaux lamps. very colourful.
Funny book I saw at a bookshop at the train station. Sarkozy and his women; a man under influence.
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