Bel and Phil's Adventures

Bordeaux, France

By belandphilsadventures on July 19, 2018

Sunday 15^thJuly – Bordeaux

We were up early and out as we wanted to go on the bus around Bordeaux this morning. We got over to the tourist centre and there was 1 lady waiting to go on the tour as well. The tour needs 5 people to go, so we were waiting for 1 more person. Luckily there was another tourist and we were off. We got talking to the lady who was waiting with us who was German, but living in Paris and spoke fabulous English. She was so nice.

The bus trip was perfect and luckily early as it was in an open top bus. We were on the 10:15am trip. This is such a pretty city, with many old buildings. Bordeaux’s heyday was in the 1700’s and 1800’s due to its strong position as a trading hub and exports of red wine from the area. We crossed the Pont de Pierre which is an arched stone bridge which had 17 arches which is the same number of letters in Napoleon Bonaparte. He ordered the bridge to be built after his army was held up in Bordeaux on their march towards Spain, as all of the army and provisions had to be transported across the river by boat.

After our fabulous boat trip, we posted some postcards for Mum and then headed back towards the hotel. We had a stop in H & M as Mum’s handbag’s handle had broken, where she found a bargain for 8 Euros (on sale).

We got back, packed our bags and headed out. The cab was there, although it was just a normal sedan for the three of us and our 3 big bags. It was a bit of a squishy ride to the airport with the 3 of us in the back seat and my bag in the front. We arrived and then proceeded to the terminal we needed to go to and went through their processes. London here we come!

 

We landed at Gatwick and our travel guru had organised a car for us. Luckily it was very spacious. Our driver was a Portugese gentleman and was showing us some of the sights as we neared London. We had a lovely time chatting to him and we also REALLY enjoyed being on a road where people were driving the normal way! (That is with the driver on the right and oncoming traffic also being on the right instead of the other way around as it is in Europe.)

 

We arrived at our hotel – Pullman Hotel, Kings Cross and checked in. The front desk attendant, Renaud, was lovely and very helpful. He suggested a local pub for something quick to eat called The Rocket. France had won the World Cup. The game was being played as we were in the air. They beat Portugal 4 – 2. We had dinner at the pub consisting of burgers and chips – pretty typical pub food really.

We headed back to the hotel to bed as we didn’t want to be late for tomorrow. We are off to the Harry Potter Movie Studio Tour and definitely don’t want to be late.