If you are thinking of visiting the Charente Maritime area (about an hour from Bordeaux) I would like to recommend a new blog in English about that area and its attractions.
Link http://lostinfrance2.blog.co.uk/.
]]>As a writer and photographer I find the notion of creative expression in myself and others very appealling, even in quality graffiti. I don't know the names of the artists alas but here are a few of the images I have seen created around the city of Bordeaux.
I love these French signs and would recommend if you want to get some great pictures of the city to look above the shops and down back alleys. be brave and your photography will really pay dividends.
This one was taken on the quayside up near the district of Chartrons.
There are plenty of old street signs that can be shot due to their distressed state.
This French cafe bar is situated on the main shopping street (rue Ste- Catherine) in Bordeaux. I've been there so often on my holidays that I feel like it is a little home from home. It is at the end of a little covered shopping arcade on the left hand side walking down from the Opera House Square (place de la Comedie). It's nothing fancy just typically French with pleasant staff. A great place to practice your French as they have little English. Enjoy.
This is another book I bought from Mollat’s bookshop in Bordeaux but is also generally available here in the UK.
As a Francophile with what I thought was a poor command of French and little real understanding of the French culture, I was thrilled and delighted with this book. It made me realise that over the years I have actually picked up quite a lot of knowledge. The style of the book is very readable, informative and at times very amusing. As a bit of a holiday read to begin to understand the French language as it is spoken a bit better I highly recommend it. I was so chuffed when I understood some back-slang heard on the tram and spoken by some young French lads, from reading this book. I also discovered that I am not alone in my love of the French store FNAC and if I have an itchy ear I can attack it with gusto in France.
I seriously recommend this entertaining book to anyone who has an interest in learning more about the French. As Simon Hoggart says on the back cover ‘If you use the words and phrases here, you’ll be so convincing, French people will talk very fast to you.’
Charles Timoney’s Pardon my French is published by Penguin and is priced £7.99 in paperback.
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Let yourself be guided around Bordeaux. I picked up this little handy guide from the Monoprix supermarket in Bordeaux on my last visit and found it to be very helpful in finding my way around the city and learn a bit more about the city and its buildings, history and the modern everyday Bordeaux. For a holiday visit and to enjoy browsing through at home, I found this 80 page guide a fantastic resource. It is full of up to date photos and the street maps are clear and the important landmarks very clearly marked with a numbered system. It covers all the districts you are likely to come across during your stay. They are as follows. If you like planned walking it gives you ten walks (one per district) and all the walks are easy to organise as they all start from tramstops. The guide was a very reasonable price at 7.90€ and available in English.
The national power grid manager, ERDF, said today that nearly 1.2 million homes were cut off and that access to certain parts of their grid are affected by the storms and are especially hard to reach because of the fallen trees.
The French railway company SNCF said it had been forced to halt services completely in the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrenees regions. They asked travellers to postpone their journeys. It said that high-speed TGV trains from Bordeaux had been stopped because of an electrical fault caused by the storm.
"Because of numerous fallen trees on the tracks, the SNCF does not expect a return to normal traffic today," it said in a statement
Edited from Reuters report.
]]>I would like to share two personal hotel recommendations in Bordeaux with any travellers planning a visit. They are both small hotels that I have had the pleasure of staying in on my three trips to Bordeaux for my holidays.
First is the Hotel Notre Dame a charming two star hotel in the centre of the Chartrons district of Bordeaux. It is situated at 36-38 rue Notre Dame. To walk into the city centre only takes about ten minutes and can be achieved along the river front or through the back streets of the Antiques district.
The rooms are very comfortable and the one I had- as a single visitor – had a nice large bath/shower and a comfy double bed. Breakfast was a simple affair with a choice of tea/coffee/hot chocolate and a fruit juice. The croissants were pleasantly warm and there was a small baguette that I personally found a bit tough. The same breakfast is offered each day so if you are planning a long stay and want some variety there are plenty of coffee places nearby.
In the area around the hotel there are plenty of cafes and restaurants and some of them have English speaking staff. You can also go direct into the city centre of course. Avoid the Golden Triangle area if you are on a budget.
Max, the hotel manager spoke very good English and the other auxiliary staff spoke a little. Always a good chance to brush up on your French I feel.
I stayed for 14 nights on a reasonably tight budget and was pleased with the value I got for 810€ including breakfast and local taxes = 54€ per night.
Positives: Very friendly welcome. Good location. Clean comfortable rooms. Close to city centre. Close to tram system. Good value.
Negatives: There are two floors and no lift. The stairway is quite tight and awkward to heave suitcases up and down. Bit noisy at times with people arriving at odd hours. Nothing out of the ordinary for a small hotel however.
The second hotel (which I stayed in twice) is the Hotel de l'Opera at 35 rue Espirit-Des-Lois. The hotel is in an 18th Century building. My visits were in 2004 and 2005 so details may have changed.The link will give you bang up-to-date details.
Again, I felt welcomed at the hotel and it was a family run establishment and the premises are situated right in the centre of Bordeaux alongside the actual Opera House.
The room was quite small with a double bed each time and had a view out to the side of the Opera House and the bathroom facilities were adequate (shower, sink and toilet only). A big bonus was the small lift to each floor. I recall there were five floors to this hotel. The room was clean.I believe that this hotel has 28 rooms.
Breakfast was the same continental breakfast I experienced at Hotel Notre Dame.
At my last look in the 2008 Michelin Guide the rooms for a single person were advertised at 45/55 € per night. Breakfast an additional 6€.
Positives: Very friendly staff. Lift to rooms. Secure building at night with security gate on street level. Reception is in the bright breakfast room on the second floor.Rooms were surprisingly quiet for city centre.
Negatives: None really. The only reason I didn’t stay here again was that the hotel was fully booked.
Contact details: Hotel Notre Dame: 05 56 52 88 24
e-mail hnd33@free.fr
Contact details: Hotel de l’Opéra: 05 56 81 41 27
e-mail hotel.opera.bx@wanadoo.fr
Taxi from airport approx 40€
Jetbus price approx 7€ to Quinconces Square (city centre).
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When I got back from the trip out I was mighty hungry and walked into town along one of the posh streets and ended up at the Grand Café for something to eat. What you might call, an expensive mistake repaired somewhat, by some fun observations. The sun was setting and reflecting in a golden glow on the buildings around. A Vespa scooter whizzed past. There was some thin music from inside, an accordion and now and then some singing. I thought to myself, “Can this get anymore clichéd French!” Pass me my beret!
A Mafiosi man was smoking dangerously and eating greasy looking chips nearer the street. There were three men in open jackets nearby and a buxom cyclist sailed past, keen, no doubt to get home. Another cyclist, pre-occupied by the sounds from his ipod momentarily saw himself glide by in a myriad of reflections – shop windows, sunglasses, and scooter mirrors and possibly his own sub-conscious idea of self. There was an older man on the way home from the office doing a job he never really enjoyed. Two younger women, whose evening will start out with light banter and will end at home with them on the sofa moaning about their ineffectual preening boyfriends, passed by in their black clicking heels. An older couple- she stroking his hand and talking about the supermarket shopping sat close by oblivious to my note taking. A cool breeze started up and bus horn parped. The Mafiosi man coughed and left whilst fumbling for his red cigarette packet. The writer coughs in sympathy. The waiter brings more bread to the writer who has already ravenously eaten the first lot.
A ‘Paris Je t’aime’ actress look-a-like sat close by and seemed to be having a very unhappy day. Fritz, her husband, who had gorged on les frites sat opposite her in his Mr Toad blue suit and ordered another bottle of wine, most likely for his consumption as the expectation of the wine arriving seems to perk him up. I was really enjoying this cavalcade of misfits and the opportunity to observe and make amusing notes.
‘Je t’aime’, whom I have now christened Mitzi has just given Fritzi an intense telling off. This was fun-watching folk, thought I, and some way of me getting something back for foolishly choosing the expensive roadside table. During my observations I had ordered steak frites. Just fancied a nice juicy steak.
While I was sitting there, there was visual access to another café bar and the clientele sitting at their tables. Across the way a woman with sunglasses on her head and thick dark hair was provocatively licking and tongue probing the remainder of her chocolate drink she ordered not half an hour ago. The man with her, we’ll call him, Hubby, was bouncing his old shoes shod feet in years-old lack of patience. She got her reptilian tongue right down to the last wet chocolate remnant sitting in the furthest reaches of her glass, and scooped up the chocolate with great satisfaction. They left, his old denim hat matching her faded denim jeans and they faded from my memory with these notes only supporting their existence. Oh, how Noël Coward that sounded!
Fritzi and Mitzi have five glasses lined up. His current glass has grubby finger prints on it and her vessel is smeared with ‘faded decadence’ by Dior, lipstick stains. Dickens would have had a field day with these two grotesques.
I’m in mid-meal and a woman passes by with a zip dripping from her long woollen jumper neck. I stopped my masticating and noted that she had very short blonde hair and was arm-in-arm with another man or woman. They had disappeared around the corner and it was hard to tell. The other person was very smart in a white shirt and pleated trousers. I put my pen down for a while and ate my food. It was nice enough and I had a dessert and then asked for the bill, paid it and left the café reeling from the price. I nipped their loo, walked back through town and took some photos on the way back to the hotel. I got some good night photos of the new refurbished hôtel opposite the Opera House all lit up with coloured lights; the Opera House itself; a clock face and one of the pretty squares further down the road off the Place de la Comedie and Rue de la Porte Dijeaux.
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