By Paul Topping

It’s not my first visit to the Bordeaux region of France, as I had previously toured some wineries while working in the duty-free industry. A Tesla taxi picks us up at Bordeaux Airport; I have to hold the tailgate up as the driver loads the luggage, since the tail door is broken!

The opportunity to spend five days in this amazing city has created a massive list of things to do and see. Our group consists of French New Yorkers, Sri Lankans, Australians and The Whinging Pome. We enter the hotel called “First Name", a strange name! Via the hotel’s back entrance, we squeeze into a small lift. I'm glad Jezzabel only has one large suitcase. The doors open and we arrive in the bar/restaurant, where we are met by a sixteen-foot-tall brown stuffed toy dog! Strange. The French receptionist called Benjamin, speaks excellent English and has a great sense of humour, very rare. The hotel is funky, well located with active staff, the bedroom is large, modern and fully equipped.

Day one starts with an amazing breakfast in a small cafe. I always avoid sitting in fancy restaurants in open, fashionable squares, regardless of the country. They usually offer poor service, overpricing and disinterested staff. Smaller cafés in side streets tend to be cheaper, with better service and more owner involvement.

The Bordeaux metro city is one largest in France, but the historic town by the large Garonne River has around three hundred thousand residents. The city looks so much bigger. The area is one of the world’s greatest wine-producing regions.

Its history is colourful, beginning with a Celtic tribe that settled in the area around 300 BC. The Romans arrived in 60 BC, followed by Viking raiders. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the city was under British control and flourished. Much later, it was re-seized by the Duke of Wellington to support anti-Napoleonic locals. Italians established a submarine war base here in the 1940s. In 2007, Bordeaux was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.

It takes us about a day to visit the key city sites. These include five grand churches, the Town Hall, the Palace, and some of the largest outdoor event venues in any European city. From the wide banks of the Garonne River, we take a one-hour river cruise. It’s a great opportunity with lots of informative dialogue and a different view of the city. 

We enjoy many glasses of local wine in some quaint locations. I hunt down my favourite grape, Carménère, which originates from Bordeaux. There is only one bottle in the restaurant, and it’s from Argentina. Crazy!

This city played a significant role in the slave trade. Over 150,000 slaves were processed through Bordeaux’s port. In the eighteenth century, the city was laid out with a grid system of wide/ straight roads. This city planning was then copied in Paris. At this time, the Bordeaux port was second only to London. During the same period, the region emerged as one of the strongest wine-growing areas in Europe.

During the Second World War, Italian submarine pens were built in the city. Best to get a cab there as no signposting and satnav is misleading.  Near the end of the war in 1944, Henri Salmide, a German naval officer, was ordered by his senior officers to blow up the pens. He knew that doing so would likely kill around 3,500 local residents living nearby. His refusal made him a target of the German military. He was helped by local people and was ultimately awarded the knighthood of the French Légion d'honneur.

This beautiful and highly walkable city, I would suggest, is worth at least a five-day break. We spend four hours a day walking the streets, including a visit to the large park. We skipped the outdoor puppet show to the disgust of the Sri Lankans in the group.  Jezzabel gets some shopping time whilst I seek out the cemetery. The old city is pedestrian-friendly and easy to explore. Bordeaux is one of the world’s premier wine-making regions and a true culinary delight, with hundreds of restaurant choices. 

Eighty per cent of the region’s landmass is covered in vines. We visit a few wineries. My wine story is vast and will be covered in another write-up: Bordeaux / The Wine Story.