day 1

Our first day in Bordeaux didn't start too well as we were informed that the Lenny Kravitz concert has been cancelled and rearranged two days later. Unfortunately we will not be in Bordeaux then so we've had to knock that on the head ☹️

Anyway, we started off the day with a 2-hour walking tour of the city. 

 A fascinating place. The Aquitaine region was English. Basically back in 1152 Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry Plantagenet who then became King Henry II of England which meant this area became governed by England for three centuries. Then 100 years war and reverted to France. 

 interesting story about this fountain. The statues here were dismantled by the Nazis towards the end of the war and they tried to ship them to Berlin but were intercepted by the resistance. It took 30 years before the statues were put back in place as they had to find the money, build the roads and transport these things back to Bordeaux. 

Claude Boucher is generally regarded as Bordeaux's architect for planning the layout and style in the 1800's.

When Napoleon asked Haussemann who was a resident of Bordeaux back in those days to modernise Paris, he pretty much stole all of Boucher's ideas...

 This is the longest shopping street in Bordeaux - 1.5km. On a Saturday apparently there can be as many as 45,000 people. On a Tuesday at 35° ☀️not so many.