Bordeaux, France

My first stop on my attempted 2 month road trip journey is Bordeaux in the southwest of France.  World renowned for their red wine, I figured it was a must stop on my trip.  I left Paris fairly early in the morning where I encountered a bit of trouble right off the bat.  The woman at the ticket office told me that with my Eurail pass they only allow so many travellers on the train with that pass and there were none available for me today!  Eek! She did end up letting me pay a difference in price and my reservation ended up being 18 Euro instead of 6 like it should have been.  Oh well, at least I made it to Bordeaux!  When I got to the train station I decided to go ahead and book my ticket out of Bordeaux for 2 days later (as that is all I reserved for hotel room for) to head to my next stop Nice.  Well once again I ran into some problems about how they already reached the max amt of Eurail pass holders and there was nothing available.  Then they told me that the trains were going on strike!  Ahhh, what a nightmare.  I was dealing with the nicest man and somehow he finally got me out of Bordeaux for 2 days later via Toulouse and Marseilles, and the best part was that it only cost me 6.50 Euro, which is more like it! 

Next I headed to the hotel and got on one of the trams from the train station to the center of town.  That was really easy to navigate and I found my little hotel right off the bat.  The man at the front was super nice and it was a cozy little room.  Nothing fancy, (as my budget can't afford fancy), but it had a double sized bed, a tv, a desk, internet hookup, and a shower and sink.  The toilet was down the corridor, but that didn't bother me.  I asked the man where a good restaurant was and he pointed me across the street to a little Chinese place.  Turned out to be a good rec, I had some noodle dish and it was real tasty.  I laid low that evening as the next day I wanted to explore a bit more and I had a half day wine tour set up. 

Woke up fairly early the next day to go walk around and take some pictures.  I also wanted to grab some lunch because the wine tour started at 1:30 and they didn't provide lunch.  I walked along the promenade winded along the river.  I'm not even sure if winded is a word.  Anywho, there was a neat little shallow water area where you could walk through (or run through as the kids would have it.)

After walking around a bit, I found a nice cafe to sit outside and have a sandwich and latte before the wine tour.  I got a Croque Madame instead of my usual Croque Monsieur.  The only difference is that the Madame has an egg on top.  Always wanting to try new things I opted for the egg. It was both yummy and greasy.

Next was the wine tour and we were to meet at the office of tourism to set off on our afternoon wine tasting.  We all loaded onto nice air conditioned coach buses for the hour long journey out to the chateau's.  The first stop was at a family owned winery called Chateau Mercier.  There we were greeted by the owner himself and he gave us a detailed description of how wine was made.  Thankfully we had an English translator!

Although the at the first stop the guy was very passionate about his work, he did tend to be a little long winded and went into wayyy too much detail!  I finally had to step outside after awhile and just roam around.  But not too long after was the most important part of the stop, the tasting!

They had set out some bread and jam that they sold as well for us to try.  The jam was made from the grapes that they grow, it was decent but nothing to write home about.

After we got through tasting you had a chance to buy some of the wines but I opted not since my suitcase is already so stuffed as it is.  There would be no way to carry that sucker in my luggage.  We load back onto the bus and head to our next destination which was about 20 minutes away.  This one was much more impressive and this time it was a lady giving us the run down and background to their wine.  It was a lot more scenic and they had an awesome mini mansion on the property!

The property also over looked a river!

This is the view from the back of the chateau.  The day was pretty so she talked to us outside.  We then went to wear the  barrels are stored to mature the wine and walked all around.

This was the name of the second winery we went to. 

Finally we get back on the bus and head back to the city of Bordeaux, I think I nodded off for a little bit, but the scenery was so pretty.  I went back to the hotel and rested for a few and then hit up dinner.  I walked around trying to find something cheap and happened upon a pasta place that was kinda like fast food, it was pretty decent too.  Then I took the long way back to my hotel and took this absolutely gorgeous picture!

The next morning I got up fairly early to catch my train to Nice.  Which ended up turning into a 12 hr. day on the train!  I first went to Toulouse then had an hour layover.  From Toulouse it was about a 5 hr. train ride to Marseilles where I had another hour layover. And finally to Nice after a couple of more hours!  I slept mostly and listened to my ipod!