Bordeaux
We don't have a wifi connection in the hotel here, as we have had the past several places, so the blogging and emailing will be less. The last entries I posted from the lobby of our two star hotel in San Sebastian, they had to reboot their router between my uploading the photos to flickr, and my blogging them, but it wsa okay.
Things in France are more expensive than in Spain. It looks like using the machine to wash clothes here will cost as much as having them done in Madrid. But it is not really a big deal. We ate at a restaraunt very close to the local Notre Dame (I think it was called DuPont) that had black mullet that was delicious. Even the grilled tomato was great. The desert was a triple, a profiterole (perhaps the best I have ever had) a fruit pudding-cake that was not so great, and a small creme brulee.
It was the most expensive meal so far, but worth it I think. Had some local wine, I could not resist the name, it was Nodoz believe it or not. I wonder if it is related to the familiar pill (familiar to truck drivers and cramming students at least). There was some difficulty getting to sleep last night in any case.
All this blogging about food is making me hungry.
Today we walked around a bit, there are a lot of rather pretty buildings in this town. Spent a good bit of time aboard the Colbert, a retired missile cruiser that is now docked here. Oddly, although Bordeaux is 100 km from the Atlantic, it is a major port. It was fun to wander around the ship, which was much more comfortable to traverse than the Russian sub in Hamburg. I enjoyed seeing the missile launcher, which was explained by a video in the room above the magazine. I don't quite know how they backfitted the huge mechanism into the ship (which originally just had AA guns) it must have been a huge undertaking.
We also visited the customs museum here, but it was not as interesting as the one in Hamburg. I was amazed to learn that France used to have internal customs duties, that seems like a terrible idea. Eventually they realized that, and got rid of the "tax farmers" but it was not easy for them. Reminds me a bit of the situation in the US, with a preposterous income tax system that is entrenched and all but impossible to simplify.
Also stopped in a couple of cafes for coffee and to read the paper (two euros for the Int'l Herald Tribune!). Nice just to relax.
Things in France are more expensive than in Spain. It looks like using the machine to wash clothes here will cost as much as having them done in Madrid. But it is not really a big deal. We ate at a restaraunt very close to the local Notre Dame (I think it was called DuPont) that had black mullet that was delicious. Even the grilled tomato was great. The desert was a triple, a profiterole (perhaps the best I have ever had) a fruit pudding-cake that was not so great, and a small creme brulee.
It was the most expensive meal so far, but worth it I think. Had some local wine, I could not resist the name, it was Nodoz believe it or not. I wonder if it is related to the familiar pill (familiar to truck drivers and cramming students at least). There was some difficulty getting to sleep last night in any case.
All this blogging about food is making me hungry.
Today we walked around a bit, there are a lot of rather pretty buildings in this town. Spent a good bit of time aboard the Colbert, a retired missile cruiser that is now docked here. Oddly, although Bordeaux is 100 km from the Atlantic, it is a major port. It was fun to wander around the ship, which was much more comfortable to traverse than the Russian sub in Hamburg. I enjoyed seeing the missile launcher, which was explained by a video in the room above the magazine. I don't quite know how they backfitted the huge mechanism into the ship (which originally just had AA guns) it must have been a huge undertaking.
We also visited the customs museum here, but it was not as interesting as the one in Hamburg. I was amazed to learn that France used to have internal customs duties, that seems like a terrible idea. Eventually they realized that, and got rid of the "tax farmers" but it was not easy for them. Reminds me a bit of the situation in the US, with a preposterous income tax system that is entrenched and all but impossible to simplify.
Also stopped in a couple of cafes for coffee and to read the paper (two euros for the Int'l Herald Tribune!). Nice just to relax.
posted by efroymson at
12:27 PM
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