BDX

I've been really egtting into my red wines since I've been in France. I used to drink a red every now and then but now I have red wine in general. So I had high expectations for Bordeaux and it lived up to those expectations! The weekend started off well with a bottle of Bordeaux wine with dinner. Which we probably took too long to drink as we had to seriously run for the train. I had forgotten we had booked first class tickets which was a nice surprise for us although I think we were a little loud for first class! We got into Bordeaux late at ngith but Rach had booked a hotel really close to the station which was perfect for us! Since I am still on a health kick before Matt gets here I got up early to go for a run and I'm so glad that I did because it was beautiful in the morning running next to the river while the sun was rising.
So we walked around the old town for a few hours in the morning - it was raining so not that pleasent before having an early lunch and hopping on the bus for our wine tour of the Medoc region.
We got taken on a tour of the vats and barrels of wine -yawn! Were told how hte wine was made - blah blah blah! Eventually we got to tast the wine! We tasted two different years of the same wine, they were completely different! One was a sunny year and the other wasn't which meant that although they were only a year apart one wine was ready to drink and the other needed to wait 5 years or so. Like a bottle of wine will last that long in my house! And how are you meant to know which year is which. Totally confusing!
Our next stop was at a gorgeous Chateau - which had a fairy princess castle with its own moat and dove cote. It was beautiful and actually looked liveable. The wine wasn't so good though! After an afternoon snooze on the bus, it was back to Bordeaux for dinner. We found a great little restaurant which served us way too much food but it was all delicious!

The next morning we decided to do a few of the sites in Bordeaux before our next wine tour in the afternoon. We climbed up the Cathedral's tower which worked off our morning croissants!
Bordeaux is quite a pretty town with its wide rivers and it does have some amazing architecture which is very french in nature, some of the buildings looked very similiar in style to the Palace of Versailles. We found an amazing food-market along the banks on the river where we picked up lunch, could quite easily have stayed there all day sampling food but alas another wine tour was beckoning!
We only went to one Chateau on this wine tour, which to me was the same as the others...blah blah blah....wine tasting! After tasting the wine at the Chateau we headed to the little village of Saint Emillon (its quite famous), the tour guide showed us around a few places before we got bored and ditched the tour to explore on our own. It was a beautiful village on top of a hill overlookign the vinyards, with really steep pedestrian streets. There were heaps of wine shops to cater for tourists and an exposition where we got to test our sense of smell. We ended our afternoon with a Vin Chaud (hot wine) which is one of the best I've had I believe and then caught the bus back to Bordeaux (one of the last people on as per usual!). The Miroir d'eau (Water mirrow) is quite famous in Bordeaux but there was no water in it when we went by the morning but since it was raining it was full of water now so we went to inspect. It is such a good idea for a tourist attraction - doubles any grand building, it was really pretty at night with lights of the building but in the day I'm sure it would be equally gorgeous.

And then it was time to catch our train home - unfortunatley in second class! We had a bottle of the finest (ok cheapest) Bordeaux wine for the trip home. Thanks Rach for an amazing Valentines weekend! hehe!