Bordeaux, la Rochelle, Toulouse & Garonne-by bike, self-drive boat & car
Mar 13th, 2017, 11:45 AM
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Bordeaux, la Rochelle, Toulouse & Garonne-by bike, self-drive boat & car
In October, 2016, my husband and I (retired and in our sixties) flew into Bordeaux from the US and flew home from Toulouse. This was a very last-minute trip (like many others we have taken) that we put together quickly. We found very good airfare, and I discovered that with tickets on Delta it was only about $20 more round trip to fly from the US directly into Bordeaux (via a direct flight to Paris from MSP) and out of Toulouse (via a direct flight Amsterdam to MSP). I know many people think that a round trip out of a major hub like Paris is the way to go because it is more affordable, but this was much better routing and saved us a lot of time and hassle. And, it saved us money too because we didn’t have to pay for transportation back and forth to Paris.
Our three week trip (Oct. 2 to Oct. 25) was a mix of the usual city visits and an unusual type of trip to southwest France. We had three nights each in apartments in the cities of Bordeaux, la Rochelle, and Toulouse. In addition to these major cities we spent our time on a five night, self-guided cycling trip around the wine areas of Bordeaux and an eight day, self-drive canal boat trip on the Garonne.
If anyone else wants to do an active, outdoor-based trip like this, we’d probably recommend September rather than October, or a trip from late Sept. into mid October rather than staying until nearly the end of October as we did. We had glorious nice, warm weather the first few days of our trip (while we were in the city of Bordeaux), but after this the combination of cooler weather and the fact that it didn’t get light until nearly 8:30 am made for some days that were not the most pleasant for spending active days totally outside.
When deciding whether to make this trip we had checked the weather websites to see what we could expect, and it seemed as though it would quite nice. In fact, the weather averages for SW France seemed more like the temperatures we have at home in September rather than October. We know that no one can predict the weather, but overall we decided that the normal weather for this part of France at this time of year should be fine for what we wanted to do during our trip. Unfortunately, there were a couple things we hadn’t taken into account though. First of all, those daily high temps arrived quite slowly each day with the warmer temperatures not being reached until mid-afternoon, and the quite cool morning temperatures lingered quite a bit longer than we’d anticipated. Secondly, the pattern of the days was different than at home, with daylight arriving a lot later than at home.
The actual weather we ended up with (and I don’t think overall it was that much of a departure from the norm) did impact our trip. We’ve done lots and lots of trips, and this was the first time I have ever had to buy clothes while on the trip because I had planned wrong when packing. I needed warmer clothes than I had brought with me.
BORDEAUX CITY
Getting into the center of Bordeaux from the airport was quite easy, and we used public transportation all of the way. At the airport we bought a public transportation pass because it was cheaper than paying for each individual trip during our three days would have been. We took the airport bus directly into town where we transferred to Bordeaux’s excellent tram system. (During our stay in Bordeaux we made extensive use of our transportation passes, even riding the public boats up the river as far as we could rather than taking the much more expensive private boat tour up the river.)
The tram dropped us off less than a block from the great apartment we had rented overlooking the Garonne. https://www.vrbo.com/6690124ha We loved the location of this apartment (slightly away from the main tourist area), and it allowed us easy access to everything we wanted to see and do in Bordeaux. Plus, it was fun just looking out the window and observing life on the riverfront and river. We easily filled our 2.5 days in Bordeaux and enjoyed the city a lot; in fact, we preferred it to Toulouse. One place to be sure to visit is Bar a Vins a great place for wine tasting with some nice platters of snacks. We visited twice.
CYCLING THROUGH THE VINEYARD AREAS SURROUNDING BORDEAUX
Following our three night stay in the city of Bordeaux we started off on a five night custom cycling trip through the Bordeaux region. We arranged this cycling trip (a custom variation of the Wine Lovers tour) with Graham at Cycle Bordeaux http://www.cyclebordeaux.co.uk/Cycli...More.aspx?id=3 Our package included cycles, helmets, maps and written instructions, luggage transfer, and hotels for six days and five nights.
Graham met us at our apartment with the cycles, road maps, and instructions for the first day’s cycling; he loaded our luggage in his van to be delivered to our first hotel, and my husband and I set off. Bordeaux is extremely cycle friendly, and we set off on cycle paths out of the city in the direction of St. Emilion where we would spend our first night. It was a pleasant ride and not too difficult until we ran into a problem where some local(s) had sabotaged the dedicated bike trail.
My husband first got a flat tire due to a thumb tack, and we stopped to fix his tire. With a self-guided trip like this we’d been told ahead of time that while Graham would be available to help with major difficulties, we’d be on our own for minor things like flats. My husband maintains our cycles at home, so this was not a major concern for us. However, we soon discovered that the spare inner tubes we’d been given didn’t match the size tires we had.
Nonetheless, we got that flat fixed with some patches and set out to ride again when we soon discovered I had two flat tires. Looking at the tires on my bike we found seven, hot pink thumb tacks in the tires. There was no way I was going to go any further. Luckily we were in a town right next to the cycle trail where there was a cycle repair shop, so we pushed the bike there and had the owner repair the tires for us. In a mixture of my broken French, his minimal English, and the use of Google translate on his computer, he managed to tell us that this had been a recurring problem throughout the cycling season. He had filed seventeen reports with the police about similar incidents of tacks being thrown on the cycle path, but there had been no action in finding or stopping the culprits.
We’d had a late start to begin with (we were still dealing with jet lag and weren’t exactly hopping out of bed at the break of day) and then we lost time dealing with the flat tires, so it was approaching evening when we finally got to St. Emilion and the Logis des Remparts hotel. While seemingly fine overall (since it has secure bike parking there was also a full-fledged cycling tour staying there), this hotel Graham had arranged for us in St. Emilion was the most costly of those on our cycling trip and yet also had the smallest, least enjoyable room. After we were shown to our tiny ground floor room and discovered that some of the lights did not work, we contacted the desk and asked about this. They told us that the fixtures were broken so they’d ordered new light fixtures, and there was no way to make these lights work. Then we discovered that one of the bedside lights didn’t work either, so we asked to be moved to a different room. They said they were full, so we were stuck in a room with already dim lighting where 50% of the lights would not work.
There were nice seating areas in some gardens, but we of course had arrived too late to enjoy those. And, this was one of those hotels where you couldn’t just sit at a remote chair in the gardens anyway to relax with a bottle of wine you’d purchased during a vineyard tour or have a few snacks you’d picked up along the way. Their rules made it clear that the only things that could be consumed on the premises had to be purchased from them. When it is a small hotel like this without a real outside bar and/or restaurant area and with seating rather scattered, this seems overly restrictive. This is not a hotel we’d recommend—it was way over-priced for what it offered, and the room barely had space to turn around and unpack our suitcases. I’ve read that St. Emilion is very pricey because it gets so many tourists, so maybe this is par for the course there.
We headed out to wander the town a bit and look for a place for dinner. People are not kidding when they say St. Emilion is pricey. Restaurants were quite expensive for what they offered, and we saw a cave a vins that was even offering some wines that were over 1200 euros per bottle. After checking things out, dinner ended up being right across the street from the hotel at a very good Vietnamese place that had an interesting and affordable menu.
In the morning (as he did every day) Graham met us at our hotel to pick up our luggage and deliver/discuss the day’s maps and instructions. He told us that cycling time for the day wasn’t that long, and we’d have time to sight see in St. Emilion until noon before cycling off again. So, we took the guided “underground” tour of the city before heading on our way again. The time we spent in St. Emilion was more than adequate for us, but we are not shoppers; others might want to linger and shop. Plus, we didn't do any tastings in town either.
Our three week trip (Oct. 2 to Oct. 25) was a mix of the usual city visits and an unusual type of trip to southwest France. We had three nights each in apartments in the cities of Bordeaux, la Rochelle, and Toulouse. In addition to these major cities we spent our time on a five night, self-guided cycling trip around the wine areas of Bordeaux and an eight day, self-drive canal boat trip on the Garonne.
If anyone else wants to do an active, outdoor-based trip like this, we’d probably recommend September rather than October, or a trip from late Sept. into mid October rather than staying until nearly the end of October as we did. We had glorious nice, warm weather the first few days of our trip (while we were in the city of Bordeaux), but after this the combination of cooler weather and the fact that it didn’t get light until nearly 8:30 am made for some days that were not the most pleasant for spending active days totally outside.
When deciding whether to make this trip we had checked the weather websites to see what we could expect, and it seemed as though it would quite nice. In fact, the weather averages for SW France seemed more like the temperatures we have at home in September rather than October. We know that no one can predict the weather, but overall we decided that the normal weather for this part of France at this time of year should be fine for what we wanted to do during our trip. Unfortunately, there were a couple things we hadn’t taken into account though. First of all, those daily high temps arrived quite slowly each day with the warmer temperatures not being reached until mid-afternoon, and the quite cool morning temperatures lingered quite a bit longer than we’d anticipated. Secondly, the pattern of the days was different than at home, with daylight arriving a lot later than at home.
The actual weather we ended up with (and I don’t think overall it was that much of a departure from the norm) did impact our trip. We’ve done lots and lots of trips, and this was the first time I have ever had to buy clothes while on the trip because I had planned wrong when packing. I needed warmer clothes than I had brought with me.
BORDEAUX CITY
Getting into the center of Bordeaux from the airport was quite easy, and we used public transportation all of the way. At the airport we bought a public transportation pass because it was cheaper than paying for each individual trip during our three days would have been. We took the airport bus directly into town where we transferred to Bordeaux’s excellent tram system. (During our stay in Bordeaux we made extensive use of our transportation passes, even riding the public boats up the river as far as we could rather than taking the much more expensive private boat tour up the river.)
The tram dropped us off less than a block from the great apartment we had rented overlooking the Garonne. https://www.vrbo.com/6690124ha We loved the location of this apartment (slightly away from the main tourist area), and it allowed us easy access to everything we wanted to see and do in Bordeaux. Plus, it was fun just looking out the window and observing life on the riverfront and river. We easily filled our 2.5 days in Bordeaux and enjoyed the city a lot; in fact, we preferred it to Toulouse. One place to be sure to visit is Bar a Vins a great place for wine tasting with some nice platters of snacks. We visited twice.
CYCLING THROUGH THE VINEYARD AREAS SURROUNDING BORDEAUX
Following our three night stay in the city of Bordeaux we started off on a five night custom cycling trip through the Bordeaux region. We arranged this cycling trip (a custom variation of the Wine Lovers tour) with Graham at Cycle Bordeaux http://www.cyclebordeaux.co.uk/Cycli...More.aspx?id=3 Our package included cycles, helmets, maps and written instructions, luggage transfer, and hotels for six days and five nights.
Graham met us at our apartment with the cycles, road maps, and instructions for the first day’s cycling; he loaded our luggage in his van to be delivered to our first hotel, and my husband and I set off. Bordeaux is extremely cycle friendly, and we set off on cycle paths out of the city in the direction of St. Emilion where we would spend our first night. It was a pleasant ride and not too difficult until we ran into a problem where some local(s) had sabotaged the dedicated bike trail.
My husband first got a flat tire due to a thumb tack, and we stopped to fix his tire. With a self-guided trip like this we’d been told ahead of time that while Graham would be available to help with major difficulties, we’d be on our own for minor things like flats. My husband maintains our cycles at home, so this was not a major concern for us. However, we soon discovered that the spare inner tubes we’d been given didn’t match the size tires we had.
Nonetheless, we got that flat fixed with some patches and set out to ride again when we soon discovered I had two flat tires. Looking at the tires on my bike we found seven, hot pink thumb tacks in the tires. There was no way I was going to go any further. Luckily we were in a town right next to the cycle trail where there was a cycle repair shop, so we pushed the bike there and had the owner repair the tires for us. In a mixture of my broken French, his minimal English, and the use of Google translate on his computer, he managed to tell us that this had been a recurring problem throughout the cycling season. He had filed seventeen reports with the police about similar incidents of tacks being thrown on the cycle path, but there had been no action in finding or stopping the culprits.
We’d had a late start to begin with (we were still dealing with jet lag and weren’t exactly hopping out of bed at the break of day) and then we lost time dealing with the flat tires, so it was approaching evening when we finally got to St. Emilion and the Logis des Remparts hotel. While seemingly fine overall (since it has secure bike parking there was also a full-fledged cycling tour staying there), this hotel Graham had arranged for us in St. Emilion was the most costly of those on our cycling trip and yet also had the smallest, least enjoyable room. After we were shown to our tiny ground floor room and discovered that some of the lights did not work, we contacted the desk and asked about this. They told us that the fixtures were broken so they’d ordered new light fixtures, and there was no way to make these lights work. Then we discovered that one of the bedside lights didn’t work either, so we asked to be moved to a different room. They said they were full, so we were stuck in a room with already dim lighting where 50% of the lights would not work.
There were nice seating areas in some gardens, but we of course had arrived too late to enjoy those. And, this was one of those hotels where you couldn’t just sit at a remote chair in the gardens anyway to relax with a bottle of wine you’d purchased during a vineyard tour or have a few snacks you’d picked up along the way. Their rules made it clear that the only things that could be consumed on the premises had to be purchased from them. When it is a small hotel like this without a real outside bar and/or restaurant area and with seating rather scattered, this seems overly restrictive. This is not a hotel we’d recommend—it was way over-priced for what it offered, and the room barely had space to turn around and unpack our suitcases. I’ve read that St. Emilion is very pricey because it gets so many tourists, so maybe this is par for the course there.
We headed out to wander the town a bit and look for a place for dinner. People are not kidding when they say St. Emilion is pricey. Restaurants were quite expensive for what they offered, and we saw a cave a vins that was even offering some wines that were over 1200 euros per bottle. After checking things out, dinner ended up being right across the street from the hotel at a very good Vietnamese place that had an interesting and affordable menu.
In the morning (as he did every day) Graham met us at our hotel to pick up our luggage and deliver/discuss the day’s maps and instructions. He told us that cycling time for the day wasn’t that long, and we’d have time to sight see in St. Emilion until noon before cycling off again. So, we took the guided “underground” tour of the city before heading on our way again. The time we spent in St. Emilion was more than adequate for us, but we are not shoppers; others might want to linger and shop. Plus, we didn't do any tastings in town either.
Mar 13th, 2017, 01:51 PM
#2
hi julies - nice start - for us if not for you! We spent 3 nights in Bordeaux too before we set off on a car tour and I'm pleased to say that we didn't get one flat tyre; perhaps the vandals concentrate on cyclists. Did you ever discover why they were doing that?
Keep it coming.
Keep it coming.
Mar 14th, 2017, 09:55 AM
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I have no idea why in the world people would want to sabotage a cycle path. Perhaps they were neighbors who never were happy with the idea of a cycle path being in their back yards. I know here in the US there has often been neighborhood opposition (during the planning process anyway) when a new public trail is going to be built that abuts people's properties.
Mar 14th, 2017, 10:38 AM
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Looking forward to the rest of your TR, don't see many TR's about this area. We will be in Toulouse area in September. Friends did a self-drive tour on the Canal du Midi for 2 weeks, and said it was the best vacation they ever had. So, looking forward to hearing your experience.
Mar 15th, 2017, 04:46 AM
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Here's a standard warning, for other readers: Flying into one city and out of another is efficient but the itinerary is not based on two one-way tickets. The customer must use a multi-destination search function, as obviously you did.
Mar 15th, 2017, 12:27 PM
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Yes, I did an open jaw search. I can't imagine how much buying two different one way tickets would cost!
And, yes, I don't think many people visit this area of France. I wonder why, especially since Bordeaux (the city) is often referred to as a miniature Paris because of similarities in architecture.
Back to the report.......
When we left St. Emilion, our destination for the night was St. Macaire where we would spend two nights at Les Feuilles d’Acanthe. It was another pleasant day cycling through the gently rolling terrain, and by the end of the cycling trip we’d decided that overall the scenery was best in the St. Emilion area of Bordeaux. It was definitely a full day, and we were happy to soak in the indoor pool at the hotel after getting off the cycles. Especially in comparison to the hotel in St. Emilion, this was a large, lovely room at a hotel that that we really enjoyed. And, we liked the small, pretty, un-touristy town too.
The next day we did a day trip loop from the hotel through some back paths in fields before finally ending up cycling along the canal du Garonne to Castets en Dorthe. Our destination was a restaurant Graham had recommended for lunch, but we missed lunch because we arrived at 1:45, and they ended serving lunch at 2:00. Living in the US, we are so spoiled that we can drop in for a lunch any time we want; it becomes difficult for us to remember when visiting other countries that the flexibility we are used to at home isn’t available elsewhere. One night while staying at Les Feuilles d’Acanthe we had dinner at the hotel’s restaurant Le Pampaillet (highly recommended) and the other at a different restaurant in town because the hotel’s restaurant was closed.
Our day loop from St. Macaire was the day when we started to become confused by some of the (sometimes rather unclear) cycling directions we’d been given. Unfortunately, this was to become a recurrent theme in the following days. We know we weren’t the only clients to have had this problem because one set of trip notes that we’d been given had hand-written notations on them from others who were also confused by exactly where to go in several places.
We’ve done other self-guided, European cycling trips in the past, so our inexperience was not the issue. We decided that the issue was either that Graham was excessively verbose in some instructions (rather than being direct and saying something like just follow the xxx road) or else he knew the area exceedingly well in his head but was having a difficult time giving accurate instructions to those who were unfamiliar with the area. Twice on the succeeding days we had to call him in the midst of the day to get clarification on exactly where we should have turned. This confusion about which way we should be going did affect our enjoyment of the entire trip and, unfortunately, knocked down our entire rating of the trip to about a C overall. Graham was accommodating and friendly, the hotels he’d chosen were for the most part very good, the bikes were fine, it was a lovely area with overall nice routes, but when we are tired we just don’t feel like back tracking, being confused and riding up unnecessary hills (which we did some times).
Day four of the cycling trip took us from St. Macaire to the Sauternes region where we spent the night at Chateau Trillon which is in the countryside in the middle of the vineyards. This day was partially on cycling paths and partially on the roads, and once again at times we became a bit confused about the instructions and where exactly we were supposed to ride. We rode past the historic Le Chateau de Roquetaillade and would have gone in for a visit, but they were not open despite the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon. This was probably good overall since it was taking us longer to cycle than we’d anticipated, and it was nearing dusk when we finally arrived at Chateau Trillon. Since this lodging is in the middle of the vineyards in the countryside, we had made reservations to eat here for dinner and were surprised that there were a number of other dinner guests too.
The next day was another rather long and tiring day for us. Did we tackle more than we’d bargained for on this trip? Was it the cooler fall weather? Was it the hills? Was it that the description of what we would be doing was inaccurate? Where was the time we were supposed to have for lounging around with a nice lunch with wine? We didn’t do this at all on this trip. Lunch was a rest stop somewhere along the way and consisted of a hunk of cheese with a loaf of bread we’d purchased in the morning at a boulangerie, an apple, and water.
We suspect a major issue was that in reality we weren’t leaving most places until close to 10:30, and that put our schedule off so we were always feeling rushed. The problem was that it got light late, and most mornings were quite cool (understatement at times) so we weren’t exactly super enthusiastic about jumping on our bikes and heading off very early. Most days on the trip we were both dressed in layers; I had leggings on under my cycling shorts/capris. After 1:00 or 2:00 or so it might warm up enough to take our jackets off and strip down to a long sleeved shirt.
Once again it was nearing dusk when we arrived at our destination for the final night—Chateau de Lantic in Martillac. This was a lovely room here, and we were sorry we didn’t have more time to enjoy the place. In fact, we didn’t really have time to explore the chateau and its grounds much at all. Our description of the place mentioned a pool, but of course at this time of year it was something we wouldn’t be enjoying anyway. The chateau is set a little ways on the outskirts of town, and it was a fairly easy walk into town for dinner.
Our final day didn’t consist of much cycling at all because Martillac is not too far (maybe ten miles or so) outside of the city of Bordeaux. Our plan for the day was after breakfast to cycle to a nearby vineyard where we had booked a tour, take the tour, cycle back into Bordeaux, and pick up a rental car and our luggage.
Things did not go smoothly on our initial cycling leg this day; we somehow made a wrong turn (in retrospect we knew where) amongst the small back roads through the vineyards of the Pessac-Leogman area. This was one of the instances during our cycling tour where we again finally ended up resorting to using the GPS on our phone to try to figure out which way to go. By the time we definitively figured out that we had screwed up, we had to turn around and retrace our steps, and we missed our appointed time for the tour. Since we had to pedal almost right by the vineyard on our way into Bordeaux anyway, we thought it would be only proper for us to at least stop by Château La Louvière to apologize.
Although we were nearly 45 minutes late, and we didn’t ask them to, they were gracious enough to accommodate us for the tour and the sampling of five different wines (price 9 euros each). This is not someone’s small, intimate, low-key appellation but a rather big business type place where they sell wines from a number of their numerous properties and vineyards. Although we’ve done wine tours before, it was still very interesting to take the tour through their facility and see their production. Unbelievably (since we usually have champagne tastes on a beer budget) our favorite of the tastings was their most simple and un-aged light white. We bought two bottles of their Chateau Bonnet to put in our saddlebags to take with us and headed off in the direction of the city.
Riding into the city was quite easy, and we soon found ourselves on a dedicated bike path that led right to the heart of the city and the river. We had really liked Bordeaux a lot (in fact, it was probably our favorite of the three cities we visited on this trip), but we figured we didn’t need to unpack and spend another afternoon there.
And, yes, I don't think many people visit this area of France. I wonder why, especially since Bordeaux (the city) is often referred to as a miniature Paris because of similarities in architecture.
Back to the report.......
When we left St. Emilion, our destination for the night was St. Macaire where we would spend two nights at Les Feuilles d’Acanthe. It was another pleasant day cycling through the gently rolling terrain, and by the end of the cycling trip we’d decided that overall the scenery was best in the St. Emilion area of Bordeaux. It was definitely a full day, and we were happy to soak in the indoor pool at the hotel after getting off the cycles. Especially in comparison to the hotel in St. Emilion, this was a large, lovely room at a hotel that that we really enjoyed. And, we liked the small, pretty, un-touristy town too.
The next day we did a day trip loop from the hotel through some back paths in fields before finally ending up cycling along the canal du Garonne to Castets en Dorthe. Our destination was a restaurant Graham had recommended for lunch, but we missed lunch because we arrived at 1:45, and they ended serving lunch at 2:00. Living in the US, we are so spoiled that we can drop in for a lunch any time we want; it becomes difficult for us to remember when visiting other countries that the flexibility we are used to at home isn’t available elsewhere. One night while staying at Les Feuilles d’Acanthe we had dinner at the hotel’s restaurant Le Pampaillet (highly recommended) and the other at a different restaurant in town because the hotel’s restaurant was closed.
Our day loop from St. Macaire was the day when we started to become confused by some of the (sometimes rather unclear) cycling directions we’d been given. Unfortunately, this was to become a recurrent theme in the following days. We know we weren’t the only clients to have had this problem because one set of trip notes that we’d been given had hand-written notations on them from others who were also confused by exactly where to go in several places.
We’ve done other self-guided, European cycling trips in the past, so our inexperience was not the issue. We decided that the issue was either that Graham was excessively verbose in some instructions (rather than being direct and saying something like just follow the xxx road) or else he knew the area exceedingly well in his head but was having a difficult time giving accurate instructions to those who were unfamiliar with the area. Twice on the succeeding days we had to call him in the midst of the day to get clarification on exactly where we should have turned. This confusion about which way we should be going did affect our enjoyment of the entire trip and, unfortunately, knocked down our entire rating of the trip to about a C overall. Graham was accommodating and friendly, the hotels he’d chosen were for the most part very good, the bikes were fine, it was a lovely area with overall nice routes, but when we are tired we just don’t feel like back tracking, being confused and riding up unnecessary hills (which we did some times).
Day four of the cycling trip took us from St. Macaire to the Sauternes region where we spent the night at Chateau Trillon which is in the countryside in the middle of the vineyards. This day was partially on cycling paths and partially on the roads, and once again at times we became a bit confused about the instructions and where exactly we were supposed to ride. We rode past the historic Le Chateau de Roquetaillade and would have gone in for a visit, but they were not open despite the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon. This was probably good overall since it was taking us longer to cycle than we’d anticipated, and it was nearing dusk when we finally arrived at Chateau Trillon. Since this lodging is in the middle of the vineyards in the countryside, we had made reservations to eat here for dinner and were surprised that there were a number of other dinner guests too.
The next day was another rather long and tiring day for us. Did we tackle more than we’d bargained for on this trip? Was it the cooler fall weather? Was it the hills? Was it that the description of what we would be doing was inaccurate? Where was the time we were supposed to have for lounging around with a nice lunch with wine? We didn’t do this at all on this trip. Lunch was a rest stop somewhere along the way and consisted of a hunk of cheese with a loaf of bread we’d purchased in the morning at a boulangerie, an apple, and water.
We suspect a major issue was that in reality we weren’t leaving most places until close to 10:30, and that put our schedule off so we were always feeling rushed. The problem was that it got light late, and most mornings were quite cool (understatement at times) so we weren’t exactly super enthusiastic about jumping on our bikes and heading off very early. Most days on the trip we were both dressed in layers; I had leggings on under my cycling shorts/capris. After 1:00 or 2:00 or so it might warm up enough to take our jackets off and strip down to a long sleeved shirt.
Once again it was nearing dusk when we arrived at our destination for the final night—Chateau de Lantic in Martillac. This was a lovely room here, and we were sorry we didn’t have more time to enjoy the place. In fact, we didn’t really have time to explore the chateau and its grounds much at all. Our description of the place mentioned a pool, but of course at this time of year it was something we wouldn’t be enjoying anyway. The chateau is set a little ways on the outskirts of town, and it was a fairly easy walk into town for dinner.
Our final day didn’t consist of much cycling at all because Martillac is not too far (maybe ten miles or so) outside of the city of Bordeaux. Our plan for the day was after breakfast to cycle to a nearby vineyard where we had booked a tour, take the tour, cycle back into Bordeaux, and pick up a rental car and our luggage.
Things did not go smoothly on our initial cycling leg this day; we somehow made a wrong turn (in retrospect we knew where) amongst the small back roads through the vineyards of the Pessac-Leogman area. This was one of the instances during our cycling tour where we again finally ended up resorting to using the GPS on our phone to try to figure out which way to go. By the time we definitively figured out that we had screwed up, we had to turn around and retrace our steps, and we missed our appointed time for the tour. Since we had to pedal almost right by the vineyard on our way into Bordeaux anyway, we thought it would be only proper for us to at least stop by Château La Louvière to apologize.
Although we were nearly 45 minutes late, and we didn’t ask them to, they were gracious enough to accommodate us for the tour and the sampling of five different wines (price 9 euros each). This is not someone’s small, intimate, low-key appellation but a rather big business type place where they sell wines from a number of their numerous properties and vineyards. Although we’ve done wine tours before, it was still very interesting to take the tour through their facility and see their production. Unbelievably (since we usually have champagne tastes on a beer budget) our favorite of the tastings was their most simple and un-aged light white. We bought two bottles of their Chateau Bonnet to put in our saddlebags to take with us and headed off in the direction of the city.
Riding into the city was quite easy, and we soon found ourselves on a dedicated bike path that led right to the heart of the city and the river. We had really liked Bordeaux a lot (in fact, it was probably our favorite of the three cities we visited on this trip), but we figured we didn’t need to unpack and spend another afternoon there.
Mar 15th, 2017, 09:51 PM
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I am enjoying your report. We stayed near Duras (I posted a report here earlier this year ) in September last year. From here we went to St Emilion which is a lovely little place. But,yes,I agree,quite pricey. We are also not shoppers, so a couple of hours to wander was enough for us. We also visited St Macaire which we thought was a really nice little place.
We were earlier than you, last two weeks of September, and had glorious weather. What a pity your bike leg did not go as smoothly as it could. Sounds as though you made the best of it though.
Looking forward to more. We have not done any canal trips.
We were earlier than you, last two weeks of September, and had glorious weather. What a pity your bike leg did not go as smoothly as it could. Sounds as though you made the best of it though.
Looking forward to more. We have not done any canal trips.
Mar 15th, 2017, 11:59 PM
#11
I've cycled around Bordeaux for a week and from La Rochelle via Bordeaux to Bergerac over 2 weeks all without support.
The tack issue sounds pretty nasty, I've never seen that before in 30 years riding all over Europe, I hope nothing got hurt.
St Emilion is becoming more a tourist trap everytime I go near it and I may not bother another time. Certainly your hoteliers sounds like the worst type of "bufff, je suis desolee" which over the years I've learnt means "go away, customer service is not in my job description".
Lunch and supper are within strict working hour limits set by the French state. Try doing business there, it drives you mad, you can't even continue business meetings after the end of the day.
I havn't done a guided bike ride (written by anyone else) for years but it takes a lot of skill or just use an app. In these days there are plenty of apps to do this.
E9 for a tasting, each! My goodness, last time I payed for a tasting it was in California 20 years ago.
The tack issue sounds pretty nasty, I've never seen that before in 30 years riding all over Europe, I hope nothing got hurt.
St Emilion is becoming more a tourist trap everytime I go near it and I may not bother another time. Certainly your hoteliers sounds like the worst type of "bufff, je suis desolee" which over the years I've learnt means "go away, customer service is not in my job description".
Lunch and supper are within strict working hour limits set by the French state. Try doing business there, it drives you mad, you can't even continue business meetings after the end of the day.
I havn't done a guided bike ride (written by anyone else) for years but it takes a lot of skill or just use an app. In these days there are plenty of apps to do this.
E9 for a tasting, each! My goodness, last time I payed for a tasting it was in California 20 years ago.
Mar 16th, 2017, 03:05 AM
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Enjoying this report immensely, as it takes place in my backyard, so to speak.
I'm very fond of La Rochelle, Ile de Ré, Saintes, and Royan. St-Emilion, on the other hand, has become in recent years the most despicable type of overhyped, overpriced tourist trap imaginable. I took my DH there last summer, as he had never seen it, and we were both simply aghast at the wall-to-wall tourists, the unabashed hawking of local goods like macarons at frightful prices, and the impossible parking situation. It was ungodly hot and we stopped for a drink at a rather clumsy-looking café (we were trying hard to avoid the places jammed with tourists), and they were offering 20 cl of some local wine for 32€!!! I had a panaché much to the consternation of our waiter. I will never bother going there again.
There's a recent article by a well-known French journalist about the wine corruption scene in St-Emilion and how it has destroyed the culture there. Maybe a book as well. I'll see if I can find it.
I'm very fond of La Rochelle, Ile de Ré, Saintes, and Royan. St-Emilion, on the other hand, has become in recent years the most despicable type of overhyped, overpriced tourist trap imaginable. I took my DH there last summer, as he had never seen it, and we were both simply aghast at the wall-to-wall tourists, the unabashed hawking of local goods like macarons at frightful prices, and the impossible parking situation. It was ungodly hot and we stopped for a drink at a rather clumsy-looking café (we were trying hard to avoid the places jammed with tourists), and they were offering 20 cl of some local wine for 32€!!! I had a panaché much to the consternation of our waiter. I will never bother going there again.
There's a recent article by a well-known French journalist about the wine corruption scene in St-Emilion and how it has destroyed the culture there. Maybe a book as well. I'll see if I can find it.
Mar 16th, 2017, 07:19 AM
#14
Lunch and supper are within strict working hour limits set by the French state. Try doing business there, it drives you mad, you can't even continue business meetings after the end of the day. >>
I agree to an extent, bilbo, but most big French towns and cities have at least one brasserie where you can get a meal at most times of the day and evening. Our best find was in a small town on the Dordogne where we came across an oyster bar that was open from about 10am to at least 10pm - we rolled up at about 2.30 in the afternoon and left at about 4pm, full of oysters and dry white bordeaux. But on the whole you're right - unless you are lucky like we were, you can't be certain that you'll find anything to eat outside standard opening hours.
I agree to an extent, bilbo, but most big French towns and cities have at least one brasserie where you can get a meal at most times of the day and evening. Our best find was in a small town on the Dordogne where we came across an oyster bar that was open from about 10am to at least 10pm - we rolled up at about 2.30 in the afternoon and left at about 4pm, full of oysters and dry white bordeaux. But on the whole you're right - unless you are lucky like we were, you can't be certain that you'll find anything to eat outside standard opening hours.
Mar 16th, 2017, 02:49 PM
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To me, St. Emilion falls in the same category as so many other well-known tourist towns (Carcassonne, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Erice in Sicily etc.) that have basically given themselves over to tourist shops and restaurants. The tour buses roll in, and there is none of the ordinary life or ordinary shopping left that locals would be interested in. Typically these places do not do a lot for us because we much prefer visiting real towns where real people work and live. And, usually, within the same area there are other towns that are just as charming and have just as much appeal but haven't been heavily promoted.
Actually, a 9 euro wine tour and tasting was among the less expensive ones we saw on offer at some of the various vineyards. This is the only one we did, but people can really spend a lot doing these tastings. Really though, for anyone who plans to spend time in Bordeaux (the city), visit Bar a Vin. They have a really good selection for trying nice size portions of wines from all different vineyards. Their cheese and meat platters are also very nice. We sat outside at their sidewalk tables and didn't even go inside.
More than once on this trip we were out of luck when we couldn't/didn't arrive at the correct appointed hour for a lunch meal. It is something we have a difficult time adjusting to on every trip. In la Rochelle one day we did eventually find an all day brasserie close to our apartment, but we finally left because they apparently were not at all interested in our business and never even approached our table despite the fact that we'd been sitting there quite a long time. I suppose when you know you don't have any competition at that time, service can be as lackluster as possible.
StCirq--I didn't know what a panache is and had to look it up. Sounds kind of strange to me. Are they good in really hot weather?
Actually, a 9 euro wine tour and tasting was among the less expensive ones we saw on offer at some of the various vineyards. This is the only one we did, but people can really spend a lot doing these tastings. Really though, for anyone who plans to spend time in Bordeaux (the city), visit Bar a Vin. They have a really good selection for trying nice size portions of wines from all different vineyards. Their cheese and meat platters are also very nice. We sat outside at their sidewalk tables and didn't even go inside.
More than once on this trip we were out of luck when we couldn't/didn't arrive at the correct appointed hour for a lunch meal. It is something we have a difficult time adjusting to on every trip. In la Rochelle one day we did eventually find an all day brasserie close to our apartment, but we finally left because they apparently were not at all interested in our business and never even approached our table despite the fact that we'd been sitting there quite a long time. I suppose when you know you don't have any competition at that time, service can be as lackluster as possible.
StCirq--I didn't know what a panache is and had to look it up. Sounds kind of strange to me. Are they good in really hot weather?
Mar 17th, 2017, 02:21 PM
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Since la Rochelle was only a couple hour drive, we decided we’d be better off by driving there as soon as we finished cycling. Showers and cleaning up could wait until we were in our apartment in la Rochelle. However, there was one major glitch we had difficulty figuring out. What to do with our luggage for the day since we weren’t moving on to a hotel in Bordeaux that night? Graham wasn’t going to be available later in the day, so he had to drop our luggage off in the morning somewhere where we could easily pick it up before leaving town.
We though an easy answer would be to just have him drop it off at the car rental agency where we would just load it in when we arrived a couple hours later after he dropped it off. But, there were a couple problems with this idea. First, we couldn’t figure out how to make a direct call to Europcar’s Bordeaux office rather than being routed through the central call center. The central call center wouldn’t give us a direct number either. Finally, during our stay in Bordeaux we decided to just do a trial run to figure out where to find the rental car offices by the train station. And, these are in quite a confusing place to find (we thought), so we were glad we did the trial run.
During our trial run, we went to the Europcar office and asked them in person if it would be possible to have our luggage left there for a couple hours. Believe it or not, the threat of terrorism has even caused fears in car rental agencies. We were told that they couldn’t accept baggage a couple hours ahead of time because of threats of terrorism. Their suggestion was to leave it at the train station in the secure (all bags are x-rayed before going in the lockers) luggage facility, pick up the luggage, and then come in to pick up the car. This is what we eventually ended up doing.
The downtown car rental location in Bordeaux is a couple block walk from the train station, and in fact, it is a closer walk to just take the tram to the stop past the train station and walk from there to the rental car pickup. After collecting our luggage at the train station, we presented our voucher from AutoEurope at the Europcar desk. They asked if we wanted an upgrade to a car with GPS. Since we’d downloaded a GPS system on our phones, we declined. But, as usual, with so many car rental desks where they first try to sell you an upgrade we were given the car with GPS anyway. Once we were in the car we decided to use its GPS since we had it. But, it was programmed in French, and we had to stop back in the office to ask them how to reprogram it in English. All of this took time.
LA ROCHELLE
After all of these logistics it was well past 3:00, and was heading into rush hour (just what we didn’t want to deal with), by the time we finally left Bordeaux. After getting screwed up and turned around several times just trying to get through the construction in the train station area, we were finally on the expressway between the two cities. This was easy driving between the two cities.
Our problems began when we got into la Rochelle itself. We had programmed the GPS to take us right to the apartment we’d rented. The problem was that since the apartment overlooked the harbor, there was really no parking nearby. And la Rochelle is full of one way streets. And, there were no parking places on any on the streets anywhere nearby. We circled and circled and kept getting more and more confused. At one point we actually saw some street parking but had no idea how far of a walk it would be to the apartment. We circled and circled and kept trying to find a place to park.
We had called the owner saying that we were trying to find a place to park so we could meet at the apartment and pick up the keys. Finally, we were advised to park at Vieux Porte pay lot which is by the harbor and is a couple blocks away. After all of this circling and circling, we pulled in the pay lot there and never once took the car out again until we left la Rochelle. By this point, we didn’t care what it would ultimately cost us for around the clock pay parking for a couple days; we were just glad to find a place to leave the car. When I had been looking online for apartments, I considered one that had a parking place. If I had it to do over again, this parking spot would probably trump all other things when looking for an apartment to rent in la Rochelle.
This was off-season, in the middle of the week; I can’t imagine what a nightmare parking must be in the summer and/or on weekends. If it were a simple matter of just going between the two cities, we would have definitely just taken the train as an easier solution. But, we also needed a car for transfers and to get us as close as possible to where we would be picking up our canal boat. Thus, the car rental.
We dragged our suitcases the couple blocks to the apartment and found it to be just what we wanted. http://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/16-cours-des-dames.html Just the right size for two people, with a compact kitchen, and easily walk able everywhere. It was fine for our stay in cooler weather, but I don’t know that I would want this location in the summer when the windows are open. I suspect (know) that it would probably be quite noisy from all of the holiday-makers walking along the adjacent harbor basin and visiting the restaurants below.
We had three nights and a little over two full days in la Rochelle. While we definitely liked the town, our impressions of the town were colored by the fact that we had depressing, grey, gloomy, cold, windy, and damp weather while we were in la Rochelle. The two days we had were enough to thoroughly walk the entire area that tourists would be interested in and see the sights including visiting the great food market. Having seen many similar things before, we walked by but did not go into the towers surrounding the harbor. La Rochelle’s aquarium is a real gem, and we spent the better part of an afternoon there. Perhaps if we had had nice weather we might have taken the car and ventured to Ile de Re for a day, but with the weather we had, we had no interest in doing that. Plus, we probably would have needed an additional day for an excursion to Il de Re anyway.
Time was approaching for us to leave on our self-drive canal boat trip on the Garonne, and we were becoming increasingly apprehensive about this. If the weather during our boat rental would be anything like the weather in la Rochelle, we’d be in for a miserable time. And, I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I needed to buy some warm clothes for the boat.
During one of our walks through the town, I had seen an H&M. I am not normally an H&M shopper. In fact, I’d never been in one despite the fact there is one not too far from where we live, but I knew they are pretty inexpensive. That is what I was looking for. So, leaving my husband cozied up in the apartment, I set out for H&M to buy myself some warm pants and a request from him to buy us some stocking caps (something we never, ever thought to bring from home).
My hope had been to find some very casual slacks of a man made material that would be quick drying for when I wanted to hand wash them on the boat. Nothing at all like this at H&M. All there were was sweatpants or jeans—super skinny leg jeans! I really didn’t want jeans or sweatpants because they are difficult to travel with since they take so long to dry, an important consideration on a boat where they potentially could get wet frequently.
At H&M I didn’t really have any other choice than sweatpants or jeans, so numerous pairs and styles of jean and I went into the dressing room. I definitely need to lose weight but am still about average size for an American woman, and I wear jeans at home all of the time. But, these jeans were something else! I’d managed to find some jeans that fit me in the middle, but the legs were incredibly tight with no give at all, and I don’t carry my weight in my legs. How in the world do women manage in these when they are doing anything other than standing upright and walking? In the dressing room I was giving the jeans a try while squatting and moving and stretching—all range of motions I anticipated (correctly) I’d be doing while we were on the rental boat. No way were these jeans going to work! I ended up walking out of H&M with a pair of sweatpants, a pair of heavy-weight leggings, and a supplemental pair of regular weight leggings that could be used as an additional layer or as pajamas. And, two lightweight, knit skull caps which got a lot of use during our boat trip.
We though an easy answer would be to just have him drop it off at the car rental agency where we would just load it in when we arrived a couple hours later after he dropped it off. But, there were a couple problems with this idea. First, we couldn’t figure out how to make a direct call to Europcar’s Bordeaux office rather than being routed through the central call center. The central call center wouldn’t give us a direct number either. Finally, during our stay in Bordeaux we decided to just do a trial run to figure out where to find the rental car offices by the train station. And, these are in quite a confusing place to find (we thought), so we were glad we did the trial run.
During our trial run, we went to the Europcar office and asked them in person if it would be possible to have our luggage left there for a couple hours. Believe it or not, the threat of terrorism has even caused fears in car rental agencies. We were told that they couldn’t accept baggage a couple hours ahead of time because of threats of terrorism. Their suggestion was to leave it at the train station in the secure (all bags are x-rayed before going in the lockers) luggage facility, pick up the luggage, and then come in to pick up the car. This is what we eventually ended up doing.
The downtown car rental location in Bordeaux is a couple block walk from the train station, and in fact, it is a closer walk to just take the tram to the stop past the train station and walk from there to the rental car pickup. After collecting our luggage at the train station, we presented our voucher from AutoEurope at the Europcar desk. They asked if we wanted an upgrade to a car with GPS. Since we’d downloaded a GPS system on our phones, we declined. But, as usual, with so many car rental desks where they first try to sell you an upgrade we were given the car with GPS anyway. Once we were in the car we decided to use its GPS since we had it. But, it was programmed in French, and we had to stop back in the office to ask them how to reprogram it in English. All of this took time.
LA ROCHELLE
After all of these logistics it was well past 3:00, and was heading into rush hour (just what we didn’t want to deal with), by the time we finally left Bordeaux. After getting screwed up and turned around several times just trying to get through the construction in the train station area, we were finally on the expressway between the two cities. This was easy driving between the two cities.
Our problems began when we got into la Rochelle itself. We had programmed the GPS to take us right to the apartment we’d rented. The problem was that since the apartment overlooked the harbor, there was really no parking nearby. And la Rochelle is full of one way streets. And, there were no parking places on any on the streets anywhere nearby. We circled and circled and kept getting more and more confused. At one point we actually saw some street parking but had no idea how far of a walk it would be to the apartment. We circled and circled and kept trying to find a place to park.
We had called the owner saying that we were trying to find a place to park so we could meet at the apartment and pick up the keys. Finally, we were advised to park at Vieux Porte pay lot which is by the harbor and is a couple blocks away. After all of this circling and circling, we pulled in the pay lot there and never once took the car out again until we left la Rochelle. By this point, we didn’t care what it would ultimately cost us for around the clock pay parking for a couple days; we were just glad to find a place to leave the car. When I had been looking online for apartments, I considered one that had a parking place. If I had it to do over again, this parking spot would probably trump all other things when looking for an apartment to rent in la Rochelle.
This was off-season, in the middle of the week; I can’t imagine what a nightmare parking must be in the summer and/or on weekends. If it were a simple matter of just going between the two cities, we would have definitely just taken the train as an easier solution. But, we also needed a car for transfers and to get us as close as possible to where we would be picking up our canal boat. Thus, the car rental.
We dragged our suitcases the couple blocks to the apartment and found it to be just what we wanted. http://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/16-cours-des-dames.html Just the right size for two people, with a compact kitchen, and easily walk able everywhere. It was fine for our stay in cooler weather, but I don’t know that I would want this location in the summer when the windows are open. I suspect (know) that it would probably be quite noisy from all of the holiday-makers walking along the adjacent harbor basin and visiting the restaurants below.
We had three nights and a little over two full days in la Rochelle. While we definitely liked the town, our impressions of the town were colored by the fact that we had depressing, grey, gloomy, cold, windy, and damp weather while we were in la Rochelle. The two days we had were enough to thoroughly walk the entire area that tourists would be interested in and see the sights including visiting the great food market. Having seen many similar things before, we walked by but did not go into the towers surrounding the harbor. La Rochelle’s aquarium is a real gem, and we spent the better part of an afternoon there. Perhaps if we had had nice weather we might have taken the car and ventured to Ile de Re for a day, but with the weather we had, we had no interest in doing that. Plus, we probably would have needed an additional day for an excursion to Il de Re anyway.
Time was approaching for us to leave on our self-drive canal boat trip on the Garonne, and we were becoming increasingly apprehensive about this. If the weather during our boat rental would be anything like the weather in la Rochelle, we’d be in for a miserable time. And, I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I needed to buy some warm clothes for the boat.
During one of our walks through the town, I had seen an H&M. I am not normally an H&M shopper. In fact, I’d never been in one despite the fact there is one not too far from where we live, but I knew they are pretty inexpensive. That is what I was looking for. So, leaving my husband cozied up in the apartment, I set out for H&M to buy myself some warm pants and a request from him to buy us some stocking caps (something we never, ever thought to bring from home).
My hope had been to find some very casual slacks of a man made material that would be quick drying for when I wanted to hand wash them on the boat. Nothing at all like this at H&M. All there were was sweatpants or jeans—super skinny leg jeans! I really didn’t want jeans or sweatpants because they are difficult to travel with since they take so long to dry, an important consideration on a boat where they potentially could get wet frequently.
At H&M I didn’t really have any other choice than sweatpants or jeans, so numerous pairs and styles of jean and I went into the dressing room. I definitely need to lose weight but am still about average size for an American woman, and I wear jeans at home all of the time. But, these jeans were something else! I’d managed to find some jeans that fit me in the middle, but the legs were incredibly tight with no give at all, and I don’t carry my weight in my legs. How in the world do women manage in these when they are doing anything other than standing upright and walking? In the dressing room I was giving the jeans a try while squatting and moving and stretching—all range of motions I anticipated (correctly) I’d be doing while we were on the rental boat. No way were these jeans going to work! I ended up walking out of H&M with a pair of sweatpants, a pair of heavy-weight leggings, and a supplemental pair of regular weight leggings that could be used as an additional layer or as pajamas. And, two lightweight, knit skull caps which got a lot of use during our boat trip.
Mar 18th, 2017, 02:40 AM
#20
julies - we had similar problems with the car rental in Bordeaux - it's not exactly adjacent to the station is it? We had deliberately booked ourselves into a hotel near the station so we could walk there but in retrospect it would have been easier to stay in the centre and as you say, get the tram one stop further to the car depot. One bright spot though was the Europcar agent we had who was so nice -she even brought our car down from the garage for us.
We also ran into trouble with the Bordeaux traffic - it was terrible even though it wasn't rush hour, and it took us about an hour to get out of the city and onto the road to Pauillac etc. I wouldn't go that way again.
As for just parking the car and leaving it for the entirety of a stay somewhere, you're not alone in that either. We did that twice in Sicily - once in Ortigia, and again in Taormina because we couldn't bear driving in that traffic again.
We also ran into trouble with the Bordeaux traffic - it was terrible even though it wasn't rush hour, and it took us about an hour to get out of the city and onto the road to Pauillac etc. I wouldn't go that way again.
As for just parking the car and leaving it for the entirety of a stay somewhere, you're not alone in that either. We did that twice in Sicily - once in Ortigia, and again in Taormina because we couldn't bear driving in that traffic again.
