After
¾ of a week of travel, we had finally reached our first port.
Bordeaux is a very pretty city and what was noticeable to me right
off the bat was that the city didn't seem “touristy” - the dock
was very informal, there were lots of residents out and about
walking, running, biking, and enjoying the day. There were no
tourist shops or people selling things to the tourists coming off the
ship. Behind us, there were several river cruise ships also docked.
By the end of the day, 3 river cruise ships became 6 ships all docked
and some were side by side with another river cruise ship where it
almost looked like passengers from one ship would have to pass
through another ship just to get to the dock.
We
met for breakfast up in the cafe at 8 am and disembarked off the ship
at just past 9 am. We walked off the ship and were on the city's riverwalk - there was no cruise terminal - we walked past a barrier controlled by a guard and that was it. As we were walking down the dock, I got a phone
call from Elodie and realized that I had the wrong time in my
calendar – we were supposed to meet our tour guide, Laura, at 8:45
am – not 9:30 am as I had thought. We found Laura pretty easily
and apologized for running late. She was very gracious and directed
us to the car she was driving.
A
word about touring in France and Spain – the law is that tour
guides cannot drive their own cars to take tourists on a tour so our
tour prices included not only the tour and guide, but also the cost
of renting a car. So the car that Laura had was a very nice Mercedes
passenger van which was very spacious, clean, and had a working air
conditioner.
Unfortunately,
we noticed right off that bat that Laura was pretty soft spoken and
with Seth and I sitting in the back of the van, we couldn't hear much
of what she was saying. (This was feedback that I later gave to
Elodie after the tour). We drove for about half an hour crossing
over a bridge that the Quest had passed under – it was a relatively
new bridge and the entire center section of the bridge raised like a
platform elevator up along 2 columns that supported it. Laura
explained to us the difference between the right bank and the left
bank. We were on the left bank and would be concentrating on the
left bank for the day and wander over to the right bank tomorrow.
Our
first destination was Chateau Carbonnieux which was a beautiful and
large winery that used to be run by the Franciscan monks.
A very
young woman took us on a tour of the grounds, the processing area,
the cellar, and showed us their collection of private bottles that
dated back as far as the early 1900's.
We tasted a red and a white
wine from their region called Pessac-Leognan. This Chateau had
attained the classification of Grand Cru Classe. The wine was okay but we didn't opt to buy any bottles at this stop.
Our
next stop was at Chateau de Cerons in the appellation of Graves.
Also a beautiful winery housed in a very old building.
Another very
young woman took us on a tour and in the cellar, pointed out the
black mold that we noticed in most of the cellars we went to. She
explained that the wine aged in the french oak barrels evaporated
from the barrels over time and that this promoted the growth of black
mold on the walls of the cellar. The black mold has been there for
100s of years.
We
tried 3 types of their wine and loved them all but I was especially
in love with their sweet white which was even better than one of my
favorite sweets – the Sauternes.
When we finished our tasting, we
were given a basket and told to pick out what we wanted for lunch
from their small “store”. The selection included all kinds of
canned foie gras, duck, jams, honey, olive oil, chips, etc. I really
wanted to try the foie gras with raisins – the first time I've ever
seen raisins mixed in with foie gras.
We took our basket of items
outside to the front lawn and ate under a huge magnolia tree. They
provided us with a baguette and fresh vegetables from their own garden –
HUGE tomatoes, unusually shaped plums (juicy, sweet, and delicious),
and grapes. We had 2 bottles of their wine with our wonderful meal –
this is the type of meal I could have 3 times a day every day.
After
our very leisurely lunch, we dropped by the winery that had the
distinction of being the only “superior” grand cru classe in this
appellation. The grounds were gorgeous and the view was amazing. We
were told the wines at this winery were exceedingly expensive.
Our
last stop was the Chateau Guiraud in the Sauternes appellation which
was an organic winery that also did a lot of work with increasing
biodiversity in their area. One way they did this was to put out
these “bug houses” to encourage the bugs to nest and hang out
near the vines.
We got a short course in the production of Sauterne
which included allowing the grapes to literally rot on the vine
(“Noble Rot”) which looked totally gross.
The end product,
though, was outstanding – this was some of the best Sauterne I've
ever tasted. We bought 2 bottles of their Sauterne and also a
smaller tube of Sauterne that was designed to be taken in our carry
on luggage.
Laura
drove us around a bit pointing out interesting sites near our ship –
huge public squares, cafes, patisseries, etc. before dropping us off
at the port – not really a cruise terminal as it was very informal
to get on/off the ship and we thanked her and looked forward to our
tour the next day. We cleaned up and got dressed for our dinner in
Prime C for the 2nd
time. I tried the french onion soup this time which was different
that it had cheese puffs instead of just cheese on top. It was good.
I decided to try the ribeye again and although it was cooked to
medium rare all the way through this time, I thought it was a little
tough and had less flavor than even the other day. For dessert I had
their pineapple “sandwich” which I really liked.
As
was our routine for almost the entire cruise, we returned to our
cabin after dinner, watched a little tv/surfed the internet for a
bit, and read the next day's itinerary before falling asleep.
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