day 2

First stop itoday is the customs museum. A fascinating insight into the history of trade around Bordeaux - the usual suspects - textiles, manufactured goods and of course a massive amount of wine. And incoming was salt, cotton, spices. 

The elephant in the room of course, is always the slave trade..... France and especially Bordeaux had a massive trade in slaves, sailing down to Western Africa trading product and then across to the Caribbean with their human cargo. France had a couple of goes at abolishing the slave trade and then reinstated it 10 years later and then abolished it again finally in 1848.

anyway - we'll cheer ourselves up with nice boat trip down the Garrone.

its called the dirty river. I don't know why... It's actually quite clean. That's all the silt that gets churned up from the bottom.

Bridge number one - Pont fe Pierre - built by Napoleon in 1810 - it took 10 years and a thousand workers and it has 17 arches. You can count them if you like 

 next one up is Pont Jacques. This is a lift bridge which means the whole middle section stays parallel as it is lifted by cables. Built in 2013 

 and the last one is Pont l'Aquitaine. Built in 1967. It's a rip-off of the San Francisco bridge. It's 400 m long and your last chance to get across the Garrone before it goes out into the Atlantic.

 next stop is the Aquitaine museum full of history from Roman right through to modern day. It was a blessed relief to shelter from the 38° heat with some fine museum a/c

Hercules looks cool though.

an amazing 15m rose window from the 14th century. It was found a few decades ago virtually intact .

Off to dinner tonight by boat. 

 a little place on the Riverbank to watch the solar eclipse. 

 it was more of demi-eclipse really! 

But the food, the atmosphere and the entertainment were excellent 

A tram back to the main square and then a stroll back to our hotel ending another lovely day in Bordeaux