Bordeaux - Part 2 of 2

This is the second post about our visit to Bordeaux, France on October 10, 2009. Please start with the first part if you haven't read it yet.

We stumbled upon this gorgeous little square. Worth viewing large.

Do you think this pub is British?

Luckily we didn't have Nora, so we could enter this "No Parenting!" zone. After seeing this sign in several places, I came to the conclusion that it really means "end of pedestrian zone".

Anthropomorphic candy...never a good thing.

"Please win me this big white gorilla!" "No."

I loved this ball fountain. I'd never seen anything similar. This kid was pretty good at catching them in the air.

I was never any good at these carnival games.

Gah! A manifestation of my Sponge Bob nightmare.

Montesquieu wasn't amused by the carnival activities in the square in front of him.

When you view this large, how many copyrighted images can you spot?

Worst. Claw game. Ever.

On the way to the wine museum, Marga asked me to move this potted plant. No problem.

Wine barrels in the cellar-turned-wine-museum.

I wonder if you could just park yourself in the dungeons of the wine museum and pull out a cork screw...

Wine museum Engrish.

Cool staircase we couldn't go up in the wine museum.

This is my kind of bottle!

Pensive Marga on the bridge in the park.

French geese.

Marga's keen eye spotted this wonderful display of neighborly boundaries that would make Robert Frost proud. The owner of the house on the left paid to clean its facade, and the cleaners followed the property line right up the chimney. Might need to view large if you don't see it.

While in the park, we saw this parade of cyclists, each with a musician in the front basket playing a different instrument. Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the park on a Saturday!

The Bordeaux Cathedral.

Prayer candles provided an interesting photographic subject.

Focus on the back.

Focus on the front.

This shop window made my mouth water. Strawberry and raspberry pies! Mmm!!!

Our general conclusion about Bordeaux is that it is a very beautiful city with quite a lot of character, much more character than either of our two neighboring cities of Santander and Bilbao. After living in England for several years, and then in Spain for several years, when I visit France, I find it shockingly British, when compared to Spain, in the style of shops and houses and the way people act, etc. I mean that both in a positive and negative way. Several times during our visit, I said, "Bordeaux would really be very nice...if it wasn't for all the French people." While that sounds offensive, it's really entirely a reflection on my frustrations with the language and understanding of the culture. Both Marga and I left France with a desire to learn French...not that we have any time to do so...

In the next post, we travel to Saint Émilion, the quaintest medieval wine village ever!