Port 92 Bordeaux, France

by Ed · Published June 13, 2022 · Updated June 19, 2022

Bonjour!

This post begins where Le Verdron left off earlier today! It is still Jun 9th, 2022. We pushed off from the dock at Le Verdron at about noon. We have about four hours of river cruising to get to Bordeaux!

I am going to show you some of the beautiful sights along the River Garonne without trying to explain them since I don’t know what towns or villages are associated with each. There was a lot of lush green countryside that I am not including. So enjoy the next several photos!

No, this isn’t my gratuitous photo of Insignia!

We received a surprise when a ship’s horn began to blast the departure code – three long blasts – and was answered with three. It turned out to be Insignia’s sister ship, the Sirena, passing us! She just left Bordeaux an hour ahead of our arrival!

Side note: Sirena is the ship we sailed for our first Oceania cruise – to Cuba in 2018. What’s more interesting is we were on Sirena twice before, but it was when she was the Tahitian Princess! Our first cruise on her was for Joy’s 50th birthday around Tahiti, and our second cruise was for Ed’s 50th birthday to Alaska! Then our Cuba trip was our third sailing on the ship, but that time as Sirena!

Shortly after Sirena passed, this tug arrived to help us maneuver in to Bordeaux!

She latched on to us, then the shadow tells us we’re passing under a bridge!

It’s the Pont D’Aquitaine bridge!

Here’s what the whole bridge looks like! We’ll be crossing it on our tour tomorrow!

We pass this curious structure – we learn this is the Wine Museum, and is designed to look like wine being swirled in a glass!

We pass under another bridge! This is the Pont Jacques Chaban Delmas bridge. It is a drawbridge that raises using a pulley and cable mechanism!

It is very modern looking, and the four pillars are distinctive from any viewing angle!

On the port side this fun painting is on a warehouse!

After an afternoon of river cruising we arrived at Bordeaux! At first we spy this church that looks amazingly like Notre Dame, but without the flying buttresses.

On the opposite bank is a bizzare looking set of buildings! I hope these are offices and not residences!

The tugs swing us around and we settle into our berth on the river dock, and this is our view! Lovely!

An angel appears on top of something that is likely a tower. But she’s pretty backlit – hard to see detials.

Then something gold catches my eye. It looks like a Madonna and Child. Will confirm soon, I hope! I love the gothic tower!

We get ready to rush off the ship to do some quick shopping before dinner. We have a tour that will eat up all of our time tomorrow before we sail away at 3:15 PM on Jun 10th. But before the gangway is ready for us to go ashore the Captain announces that due to heavy seas expected tomorrow we will not be leaving Bordeaux until the morning of Jun 11th! Joy is elated! This means we have all afternoon tomorrow to shop and don’t have to rush out today! We head back to the cabin to relax before dinner!

The ship has a special event for us world travelers tonight at a special venue for a tour and dinner. But we don’t feel like attending what we expect will be a superspreader event. We have had reservations at the Polo Grill for a very long time that we plan to keep.

We arrive at Polo and find there is only one other couple there – we are pointed toward a table near them. We ask Razvan, the Maitre d’, if we can have a table at the back of the ship! He agrees!

Magic!! We have the back half of the restaurant to ourselved, and a sweeping view of the riverfront of Bordeaux! Joy informs me we’re gonna milk this opportunity for everything it’s worth. We will never have a private dinner like this on this or any other ship! It was a fabulous dinner!

Evidence that no one else was sitting anywhere around us!

As the sun began to set the spires in town began to light up!

Finally night settles on the waterfront. People continue to hang out in the park on the near right. They party way into the wee hours of the morning, and this is Thursday! We are told a lot of the university students end their week on Thursday so they party then!

(This is very reminscent of the USC Business School so many decades ago – they only held classes Monday-Thursday. So the Business students were partying while the Engineering students (including me!) were still studying for Friday classes and exams!)

The rest of the city has to wait until Friday night to party!

On our second day we have a tour to see St Emilion, tour a vineyard, taste some wine, and visit an underground church! Joy is up early to enjoy some coffee in the room before getting ready for breakfast. She takes in the morning scene! (It’s a little cool outside!)

The early morning sun lights up the waterfront spires a little differently than last night’s evening sun!

The angel on the tower is a little easier to see, but still not great!

We head off on our tour!

On our way to the tour bus I grab this shot of the Insignia with the waterfront behind her. This is my gratuitous shot of Insignia for this post!

Here we are driving across the Gargonne River on the Pont D’Aquitaine bridge that I mentioned yesterday! The four pillars on the right are for the Pont Jacques Chaban Delmas drawbridge. I told you those were easy to recognize! And we can see the Wine Museum too!

We enter the St Emilion area and learn there are over 800 vineyards associated with this area!

This is the Chateaur Grand Barrail Lamarzelle Figeac, and Grand Cru winery.

Here is Chateau Pas de L’Ane.

This is Chateau La Grace Dieu. What I like about this winery is they use rose bushes at the end of their vine rows as a “canary” to let them know if there is a potential problem affecting the grapes. We saw this same practice at the vineyards in Tuscany! There are many others around here that do the same! Adds a little nice color to the grape rows!

We begin to see our first signs of the medieval town of St Emilion!

The rolling hills here are largely due to the limestone business that had everyone mining the limestone across the region. High points are typically where the limestone was quarried.

We finally arrive at Chateau Fombrauge for a tour and tasting!

They have this lovely display – oh, but they are missing the 3 liter bottle! – that goes up to a 57 liter bottle!

The picture of a Stradivarius violin owned by the family is on display! I guess business is good!

There are three coats of arms associated with this family!

I sneak a peek at the room where wine is being prepared for shipment! They have some big bottles going out!

We are led into the cellar. Over 200 casks are stored here for barrel aging, 14 to 18 months. But there are barrels dating to 2019, so older than 18 months!

This barrel from 2019 has one of my favorite names on it! Orion! I am told that is the name of the company that made this barrel.

Ah, now it’s time to taste some wine! We get to taste two wines, one 100% merlot, and another 80% merlot, 20% cabernet franc. They are both nice, but not exciting enough to make us want to buy any. Quel domage!

As we prepare to leave Chateau Fombrauge I want this photo of the tractor applying mold control, and realize this “X” might be a helipad for the vineyard! After all, if they own a Stradivarius, why not a helicopter, too?

We arrive at the heart of St Emilion. This is the remnant of the rampart wall. Residences on the outer wall actually made their parts of the wall very pretty! For example, the columned windows on the right were very expensive, but appropriate for a palace! The limestone to build the wall was actually mined from right in front of the wall. You can see the bottom third of the wall is solid rock. The “moat” area is where the stone was removed and used to build up the wall!

Our first stop in town is the Collegiate Church (Eglise Collegiale). The spire of the Monolithic Church is visible on the left!

At the door to the Eglise Collegiale, we see there are twelve, maybe 28?, statues missing – the apostles and…? We get to go inside!

The columns are strong and the ribbed ceilings seem sturdy! The light is interestingly more colored in the photo than I remember seeing. But the colors warm into the red tones toward the altar, so the nave must have been colored by the stained glass! It is interesting that the pews on the right march straight ahead for half of the nave then turn about 30 degrees to angle into the center of the nave.

The Stations of the Cross here are absolutely beautiful! Here is Station VII, as I’ve tried to show before, where Jesus falls for the second time.

(My apologies for the original post. I attributed this Station to Peter offering to help Jesus, and this is wrong on two counts. First, the station is where Jesus fell the second time, and it was Simon, not Peter, who offered help at Station V.)

There is a cloister here! A nice place to stroll and gather your thoughts! The Monolithic Church belltower still rises above in the background.

The byzantine influence in these panels is obvious, but the frescoes buried in the background are not so obvious. Look closely at the center panel – behind the clover-leaf frames you can make out portraits of figures!

OK, now it’s time to visit the Monolithic Church! This is the belltower, and is the highest point in all of St Emilion!

Here, at the belltower, are the plaques declaring St Emilion is on the UNESCO World Heritage List!

The belltower balcony offers a fabulous view of St Emilion and the valley! We’re heading down to the plaza below now!

After we wind around and go down through town we find ourselves at the plaza below the belltower. You can see the overlook we were at a few minutes ago!

Down here we are at the entry of the Monolithic Church! This is called the Monolithic Church because it is actually carved out of the limestone hill – one big rock! Monolith! The belltower was then built on top of the church, instead of at the end or in front of the church as we have seen elsewhere.

Photos inside the Monolithic Church are prohibited, so I have nothing to show you here. It was grand with a roof about twenty to twenty five feet high, and the columns were square, about ten feet on a side, rather than round. Angels were carved on the roof. There was also an unfinished carving that depicted a dragon possibly being slain by Sir George, and King David playing a bowed instrument, possibly a lyre. A hole was carved in the roof through which the bell ropes would have been passed. It was a fascinating, but somber, sight.

During our free time we visited this wine store because it had posters advertising international shipping! Joy had popped in earlier and talked to Tomas, and when we returned Clermont remembered seeing her, and helped us! We tasted five wines, and ended up buying all five! We bought a case of one, and three bottles each of the other four! They gave us 20% off the price, which helped offset the international shipping prices! It was a great find!

Back at the ship our next step is to get lunch and do some shopping and sightseeing! Well, Joy will go shopping and Ed will go sightseeing!

This little lady is on the dock. She is Marthe Adélaïde Modeste Testas and has loosed shackles at her feet. This commemorates the abolition of slavery, and it is exquisite!

We find a little restaurant to have some lunch! Le Reserve (Le R on their signs) is where we land. The kitchen is closed for cooking, but they are able to serve us a charcuterie board with great cheeses and sliced meats, a bucket of bread and some fabulous bordeaux wine! It is exactly what we wanted and it is great!

Then Joy heads off to shop, and Ed goes in search of beautiful things to photograph! And what better place to start than at a church?

This is the church I identified from the ship as a Notre Dame contender. Interestingly enough, it is on Rue Notre Dame! But it is the Eglise Saint Louis des Chartrons.

The interior is lovely and bright with all of the tall gothic windows and stained glass! The multi-fluted columns give it strength but without overwhelming bulk in the columns. The vertical lines are stunning!

The naves are set with beautiful stained glass scenes and rosettes. The scenes focus on the deeds of Saint Louis, of course!

After leaving “Notre Dame” I make a turn to the river and bump into this building, oddly contemporary in the middle of a medieval neighborhood! This is the World City Convention Center (Centre de Cite Mondiale).

I make my way to the tram – I decide to let the tram help me do some of the walking! It costs €1.70 for a single ride.

I ride the tram to the fourth stop and end up near this fabulous place, the Bordeaux Cathedral! It is an 11th century gothic church – stunning! This is the back of the cathedral!

The belltower that stands out front has our gold Madonna and Child on top! Strangely enough, this is another tower that is standing proud in front of the cathedral, not attached to it!

But now I can get this beautiful shot to confirm what I thought I saw from afar! Lovely!

And all around this cathedral are fabulous gargoyles! Every one is unique, and there are many of them, even three or four on a single buttress!

Here are three within a few feet of each other, and I’m not convinced the left-most one is a vomitor – water spout – at all!

The main facade has two amazing towers plus all of the other amazing gothic details!

The face of the cathedral opposite the twin spires has squared towers. Here is where I go in!

Like the “Notre Dame” church I find this one surprisingly bright inside! The fluted columne help keep the eye from seeing the massive size of the columns. The vertical lines are awe-inspiring! Tall tall tall!

There is a grand clock in the side of the nave. It chimed the half hour with the three bells on top!

The altar fence is magnificent!

And the altar itself is warm with the woods and uplifting with the tall gothic windows!

Along the walkway behind the altar is this beautiful statue of the Madonna and Child. The child seems wiser that the years he possesses!

As I leave the cathedral an odd structure catches my eye. It looks like a series of upside down spinning tops like I had as a kid. I find out it is the City Courthouse! How odd!

I make my way south looking for an arch, and I find it and the Column of Vine and Wine!

There are large turtle and small turtle sculptures. Both appear to have little people riding their necks, and their shells are decorated with bunches of grapes, so they must be related to the Wine theme of the tower.

Behind all of this is the Porte d’Aquitaine. This was the southern city gate when there was a wall around Bordeaux!

Next to the gate is the University of Bordeaux!

I head north on the Rue de Catherine, and turn right on Victor Hugo on my way to the Basilica of Saint Michel, I find myself passing by the Gross Cloche. This has a 7.75-ton 18th-century bell. The tower was once used as a former dungeon for juveniles, and the bell was rung on special occasions.

I continue my walk toward the river on Victor Hugo then veer right on a diagonal road that leads me to the Plaza Meynard. That’s where this lovely gothic spire resides! This is the Spire (Fleche) of the Basilica Saint Michel, and as far as my eye can see it is the tallest structure in Bordeaux!

Standing next to the Spire is the Basilica of Saint Michel. This is another stunning work of gothic architecture!

Put them together in the same piture and you see this!

The Basilica’s interior is dark and musty. I am surprised to find chairs here, not pews! The dark ceiling is not helped by the stained glass window up high. The eye is drawn straight forward to the light over the altar. The pulpit almost seems to get in the way since the nave is so narrow!

I haven’t shown organ pipes in a while, but these are finally worth including! That clock is almost right – it is an hour ahead since it probably wasn’t adjusted for daylight savings time!

The altar area appears more elegant than the overall view from the nave. Still a little dark, though. All in all, a beautiful structure, but depressing interior.

Now it’s time to turn north, back toward the ship. I like this patch of tram tracks with nicely manicured grass around the rails!

This is the Porte du Bourgogne, another monumental 18th century roman-styled arch that was an entrance to the walled city from the river. This gate is surrounded by a semi-circular buildings that make this an interesting plaza! There is actually a natural, or poorly maintained, park behind that inclined wall! I didn’t study it enough to make a determination.

A little farther north is Porte Cailhau, an historic city gate, located at the Place du Palais. We wonder if a structure like this was a contributor to Walt Disney’s castle design in the theme parks?

Then there is another plaza, Place de la Borse with a reflecting pool in front by the river.

The fountain had three beautiful graces pouring water from jugs into the fountain!

Out front, along the river is the reflecting pond, the Miroir d’eau (Water Mirror). With all of the people splashing in this 1-inch-deep marvel there is no way to get a decent reflecting image. But it’s fun watching the kids have a blast in here!

I head toward the Grand Theater, also known as the National Opera of Bordeaux to find the angel we could see from the ship! This is the Monument aux Girondins. The Girondins were a rebel faction against the tyranny of the King of France. They lost control of their rebellion when the greater revolution started, and when a new government was finally installed, it was the Montagnards, opponents of the Girondins. To eliminate their competition, the Montagnards ordered the execution of the Girondins. This monument recognizes the contributions of the Girondins, and the angel at the top is Liberty breaking the chains of tyranny!

You can clearly see the chains in her hands! A lovely sculpture!

The sculptures around the base are spectacular! The horses are seahorses, with webbed feet rather than hooves. I love how brilliant the rainbow is in this shot!

Back at the ship we get cleaned up from our sweaty day of walking. Despite our different paths we both return to the ship at the same time! After we get cleaned up, Joy decides we’re going back out to have dinner at a French resturant! We end up at Chez Dupont, again near the “Notre Dame” cathedral. We were warned if we didn’t have reservations we wouldn’t get an outside table. That’s fine – people were smoking out there.

We had the interior almost to ourselves. It was nice and quiet! When the waiter asks what kind of wine we want, our response is “Bordeaux, of course!”

We have a wonderful meal – grilled artichokes for a starter, steak frites for Joy, and a duck trilogy for Ed, Then desert arrives! OMG, profiterols! I’m glad we’re sharing this dish! It is fabulous! Yum, that’s chocolate sauce in the little pitcher!