Bordeaux, 28 April 2012

Wet, wet, wet.  Western Europe is having unprecedented rain whilst Eastern Europe is sweltering in heat wave conditions. We had planned to go to St Emilion today.  This is a UNESCO listed world heritage medieval village famous for its red wine and vineyards said to be the first in the world. However, after rains which started before we left our restaurant last night and have continued for at least twenty-four hours, we cancelled our plans.

Generally speaking we like to make our own travel arrangements rather than go with organised tours.  Even had we changed our plans, we would have seen very little through the steamed up windows of a tour bus (we had this experience once before). Besides, the train station was over a kilometre from the village and walking there and back in a pelting rain had no appeal. But the day was not a waste.

We again bought day tickets for the trams and used these to go to the Hotel de Ville, the Cathedral and the Synagogue. Security was tight at each venue.  We went into the Cathedral, parts of which date back to the 11th Century.  It was here that in 1137 the 15 year old Eleanor of Aquitaine married the future Louis VII, a few months before she became Queen.

The Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

The Synagogue is considered one of the most elegant in Europe.

Facade of the Synagogue

Memorial Plaque

In the afternoon we journeyed to the terminus of a couple of the tramlines which went through several suburban areas allowing us to see cemeteries, hospitals and schools.  At one point we stopped at the Meriadek commercial centre which, from the description in our brochures, we assumed was a banking and library centre.  Instead we found the equivalent of a "Westfield Shopping Centre" only on a bigger scale.

We were amused when we realised that in the last six months we had been in similar shopping centres in Adelaide, Sydney, Hobart, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, Paris and now Bordeaux.  You wouldn't realise which one you were in if it weren't for the local language of the signs and the speech.

Writing this in the evening, it has now been raining for 24 hours.  Hopefully tomorrow will see and improvement if the forecast is to be believed.