Bordeaux Day 1 April 2018

Bordeaux City

Place De la Bourse

Back to France again in a week! As air tickets are cheap and I'm curious about Bordeaux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordeaux

It is an interesting city that has huge wine history, stuck on traditional methods for wine.. and yet trying to find new identity.

It seems that the city is awfully small considering it's surrounded by 8500 wineries (Chateaux), all within 1 hour drive.

The Bordeaux mayor has made tremendous improvements to the city to make it much more pedestrian friendly, adding convenient tram lines and modernizing the buildings.
A lot of Bordeaux buildings remind me of Paris with the lime stone that's brought in from St Emilion. Over time, it requires sanding to clean the pollution that the limestone is collecting from the air.

As this is likely my last trip to France for this Barcelona job, I decide to splurge a little on a nicer hotel

Hotel Burdigala. Comes with a phone that contains free city guide for daily usage

The city has very nice limestone buildings creating a great ambience for walking

Pont de pierre (16 arches for Napolean's 16 letter name)

The gateway to the city

The monument

Modern shopping mall

The wine maison

Roman ruins

The mirror square in the day and night time misting

The city is very pretty at night with all the lights and it reminds me of Marseille where the city comes alive at night with the gorgeous lighting!

Place de la Bourse at night

The cathedral at night

The opera house at night

The other thing that i wanted to do was a Michelin restaurant in France and what better place to do it than Bordeaux!

Le Davoli (1 star michelin experience)

Meals in Bordeaux include a crepe restaurant and a local restaurant in the parliament plaza.
Ironically, I do find Bordeaux cheaper compared to Cote D'Azur!

Meal in Edouard in Parliament Plaza

Crepe Restaurant

Great cake in Opera restuarant

Bordeaux Cannelles.. i love.. and vow to perfect in SD!

Is it me or Spain is a tad far for this street sign? =) and cyclists are winning in Bordeaux

the cakes, the cheese, the sights.. 

France Trip March 2018 Day 4

Day 4 - Villandry, Chinon, d'Usse and d'Arzay
This is our last day of visiting and we tried to see as many more castles as we can
However, coupled with the cold Europe winter and rainy day, there's some challenges and we had to use some imagination in our visits =)

Villandry - castle 4 in visit list

Pamphlet of Villandry

This is the last castle and with time constraint, we only went into the garden instead of the Chateau.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Villandry

The entire garden view

The gardens are vast and i can imagine spectacular if all the flowers are blooming. As such, the postcard is prettier =)

Post card of how it could look...

Chateau de Villandry - actual during visit

The chateau and the gardens from the side

The different hearts garden, that's quite cool

Impressive landscaping

Some early bloomers

After visiting Villandry, we head off to see Chateau D'Azay Le Rideau.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d%27Azay-le-Rideau
we didn't enter but grab a quick photo from the outside.
This Chateau is famous for looking like it's floating on its own as it's built on an island in the lake.

Chateau D'Azay Le Rideau

The Chateau blooming tulips!

After this, we went to see Chateau d'Usse which inspires many disney castles designs. This one is probably the prettiest castle in this trip from the outside.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Château_d%27Ussé

Chateau d'Usse

Chateau from the side

After this, we head off to Chinon town (which isn't very exciting)

Chinon Fortress

We then went back to Amboise for a free wine tasting event.

Wine tasting event in Amboise

All in all, this has been a great week and i got a summary of the castles that we visited. There's still some that we missed but we certainly put check marks in a bunch of them =)

Summary of castles

As we head off to Barcelona, I saw some of the most spectacular sunrise.

Spectacular sunrise in Loire

Starting with this trip, we had some adventures coming to France as the freeway was cut off at Girona by parties that's pro Independent. Ironically, coming back, they also hack the toll booths and we didn't need to pay the tolls from France to Spain. It is certainly not boring being in Catalunya in its time of turmoil.

France Trip March 2018 Day 3

Day 3 - Chenenceaux
Even though this day has the worst weather, it is the best day for me, on this trip.
This is because the castle is the prettiest out of the 4, and lunch is the best food out of the trip. =)
Today we left the Loire River and venture towards the south to River Cher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chenonceau

Chenonceaux - Castle 3 in the visit list
This chateau is called the Chateau of the women as 6 women took care of it over the years.


And it actually housed royalty over the years, which makes it the most complete and elaborate out of all the ones we visited. Probably being designed and decorated by women helps too =)
What is interesting is this chateau is built over water (aka the reflection is stunning) and it's been thoughtfully decorated and built to look good at all angles! And the owners have built gardens on both sides to complete the ability to admire this chateau at various view points!

View of Chateau from Catherine's garden

The castle from Diane's garden

Having just visited Florence in October and learning about the Medici family in Italy, seeing the astuteness of Catherine Medici is very interesting for me.
She is the daughter married to the King of France in a loveless marriage at 17, as a tool to empower and grow the Medici family.
This chateau was given by the king to his mistress Diane who was later forced to give it up to Catherine.

Improvements made to the Chateau over the years

I also see a lot of Italian Renaissance influence in the decoration. So Catherine did love the chateau and brought it to great glory, housing lots of parties and enlarged the chateau to house royalties.

Italian Foyer

2nd floor foyer

Fireplaces in the Chateau, with a distinct Italian Renaiisance influence

I can imagine huge parties held in this banquet room

Elaborate bedroom 1

Elaborate bedroom 2

Did i mention this place is full of absolutely priceless antiques?

Catherine garden from the Chateau

Having feasted our eyes on the chateau, we then had a great meal at the restaurant in the chateau call L'orangeria.

Great lunch at L'orangeria

After lunch, we tried to go visit Clos Luce, which is the chateau of Leonardo Da Vinci for the last 3 years of his life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clos_Luc%C3%A9
Unfortunately, we were unable to see the Chateau from the entrance without paying, as the gardens are vast and the Chateau is hidden.

Map of the immense park

Ticket office of Chateau Clos Luce

Amboise - Town 2 on visit list
We made our way back to Amboise town for shopping.

Amboise castle which is more like a fortress

Main stress of Amboise

Clock tower

Cute street views and food in Amboise