Fellow Travellers

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Bordeaux - June 18, 19 and 20 2010

I am so enthralled with France and we were lucky to find ourselves in Bordeaux for a long weekend in June.  G had to visit the Parentis office for some meetings so I tagged along (because I was afraid if I let him go on his own he would have drank Bordeaux dry and left nothing for me!).

While he worked on Friday, I drove our cute little BMW mini up to Archacon in the northern part of the province of Bordeaux.  The town is quite touristic but as the season had not started yet and the weather was on the coolish side there were few people around.  Archacon has a lovely "plage" (beach) fronted by a boardwalk lined with restaurants.   The beach was quite charming and I had no trouble picturing myself perched on a sun chair enjoying the sea air.  Behind the plage there are streets lined with shops and many more restaurants to choose from.  I managed to find some beautiful French linen tea towels and some regional specialty foods to take bake to Amsterdam.

The most fantastic site in the north of Bordeaux is the Dune de Pyla which is the largest sand dune in all of Europe.  The easiest way to the top of the dune is via a set of about a 100 stairs.  Once you climb to the top