Situated along the Garonne River, Bordeaux is home to approximately one million people, making it one of France's largest urban centres. Its history dates back to ancient times with evidence of settlement as early as the 4th century BC. With its beautiful neoclassical buildings of the 18th century Bordeaux has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our ship glided along the Garonne River for more than three hours before we docked this morning around 10am. It is a very wide river and as we approach our dock we notice lots of river cruise boats lined up along the shoreline. We are docked right in the heart of Bordeaux, that is always a lovely surprise, and it is a very short walk to reach the city centre.
Our tour is a walking tour around the city centre, the beautiful old part of Bordeaux. As we begin our walk the first thing I notice is all the wrought iron "Juliet" balconies that you always associate with France and are so iconic. The other thing I notice is the cafe's along the streets with all the chairs facing the road, simply for people watching.
We stop at the Cathedral Saint-Andre de Bordeaux with awe inspiring steeples and across the square from this is the famous Hotel De Ville.
There are many arches in the town centre of Bordeaux, I think our guide said seven. Some look very "Arc De Triomphe", some date as far back as the 16th century and are very gothic looking with their pointed tops and one is even a bell tower. The one thing they all have in common is that they are very impressive.
Our guide points out to us the 12 cinemas building with its glorious architectural columns and further on we come across two statues. One is very modern with an almost three dimensional look and the other is a statue of, well, I don't remember who 😄
The last place we visit is the Place de le Bourse. In front of the square there is a large reflection pond. On a sunshine day the reflections would be magical but there are no reflections on this overcast day. We drove past Place de le Bourse at the beginning of our tour and the sun was shining. Pity we didn't get our photo then. Anyway, as we are docked overnight in Bordeaux and the Place de le Bourse is close by, we thought we would walk down later tonight to see the night reflections - if it isn't raining!
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