Saint-Emilion and the city of Bordeaux

Today, we crossed "les Deux Meres", the Garonne and Dordogne rivers, on our way to the "other" major Bordeaux wine region centred around Saint-Emilion and Pomerol.  Saint-Emilion is an ancient town, still largely surrounded by its historic walls and now dry moat, with major wine producers located right up to the town gates.  Wine tastings, bistros and wine negociants are everywhere, clearly proving wine to be the economic lifeblood of the community.  We toured around, tasted some wine, bought some wine and hit the road for the big city.  The chateaux in this region are mere shadows of the regal edifices around Medoc and.........a guy can only drink so much wine and still navigate a car around the tiny, twisting roads.

Metropolitan Bordeaux is a city of over 700,000 people, yet has the feel of an even larger community, with broad boulevards, grand architecture, and vast public parks and gardens.  And, I swear every one of the 700,000 was out enjoying a sunny warm Saturday.  The city was jammed but oddly did not seem crowded as we explored the city centre, an entirely pedestrian venue.  Our car was parked 6 levels underground!  As we window shopped the designer boutiques and other merchants, we both wondered how anyone can afford to actually live in the city.  500 square foot apartments are selling for $1,000,000 and prices for food and clothing are well higher that our Canadian prices.  The city is however humming with much new construction and busy retailers.  While it is great to travel it also does highlight some of the advantages of "home".

The pics are:

1- The old wall surrounding St-Emilion is still largely intact

2- Looking back at St-Emilion from the surrounding vineyards

3- A small sample of the vertical selections of Chateau Petrus in one negociant's store in St-Emilion

4- Brenda strolling along one of the wide pedestrian boulevards alongside the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux.

5- The square in front of the Grand Theatre was bustling

6- The Quay along the shore of the Garonne River has multiple names along its total length of many miles of grand buildings.