French birthday kisses!

I can't wait to start writing about Spain because I love it here so much but before I do here are the highlights of our last two stops in France.

Bordeaux

I really liked Bordeaux! It's like a mini Paris but friendlier and more relaxed. It also reminded me a bit of Melbourne. It's a university town but unlike Tours, the city is alive with music, art, food and great wine (obviously). The locals have fun here - the streets and squares of the old town are filled with restaurants, pubs and boutique bars and people swarm to them gathering late into the night. The shopping is also really good here - I discovered a French shoe shop that I love (and they have an online store, winning!).

Three highlights for me in Bordeaux were:

1) Seeing the gates that border the old town. There are four of them and they used to allow entry and exit in and out of what once was a walled city.

Porte Dijeaux - one of the four remaining city gates in the old town

Porte Cailhau - another of the four gates

2) Wine tasting at Aux 4 coins du vin.
This wine bar is outstanding. They have wine dispensers which display a range of white and red wines from the region, from expensive vintage wines to everyday wines. You get a bar card and you can decide whether you want a taste, half a glass or a full glass of wine from whichever bottle you choose. It shows you the prices and deducts from your card. Some bottles cost over £20 for a whole glass! It's dangerous because naturally you want to try as many of them as you can - if you stick to tastings only though it shouldn't get too expensive. But who sticks to tastings when you can have a whole glass? Right Mum? Sorry :P love you! Megan and Kar, you would have loved this bar, the food was really good too! It's a great concept and a good opportunity to taste an expensive wine that you would never be able to afford a bottle of.

I was the baby of our intrepid group. I got well looked after - I got mum hugs from Megan, eucalyptus throat lollies from Maggie etc etc and Greg, Megan and Serena were on a mission to find Laura, Lynn and I men! While we were at the wine bar, a group of guys came in and stood at the table next to us. Some of them were really good looking so Serena decided she'd start singing happy birthday to me in French (with the rest of the group singing in English at the top of their lungs) so that they would come over. They joined in the singing and before I knew they were at the table giving me 3 kisses on the cheek the way the French do! Hilarious! Afterwards someone said we should have told them Laura, Lynn and I were triplets! And from then on we became known as the triplets.

Typical street in Bordeaux

Bordeaux at night

3) Going to the opera
We found out that an opera was on in the Grand Theatre on our last night in Bordeaux so we thought we'd find out how much last minute/limited view tickets would be. Turned out they were 8 euro! Bargain! Unfortunately we didn't have time to go back to the hotel and change so we rocked up in jeans and sneakers - not exactly your typical opera attire. We felt especially grotty when we saw a girl wearing a ball gown and perfect hair! We got our tickets, went up the stunning staircase and went to the loo to try and make ourselves a bit more presentable. Laura almost walked in on an older couple doing the dirty in one of the female cubicles - at the opera?! - how scandalous darling :P

Anyway...once we'd freshened up we found a door with our number on it. It opened into a box of maybe 15-20 seats - just like the movies! We were in the centre of the theatre directly facing the stage with the chandelier just above us. Limited view pfft! True that our seats were towards the back of the box but I was on the side so I had a pretty good view - my giraffe neck is awesome in times like these! The performance was amazing! The orchestra played alone for about 15 minutes at the start and they were flawless, I was captivated! When the opera itself started we couldn't understand a word - the opera was in Italian and the subtitles were obviously in French but it didn't matter because you get the idea from the theatrics of it. And it was fun trying to work out who was in love with who and who's love was forbidden and why etc etc. We got talking to a French lady sitting near us before the show started. She was lovely and her English was very good so she tried to whisper a bit of the plot to us during the show.

Getting ready to watch the opera in the Grand Theatre

Luchon

The highlight of the time we spent in Luchon was the hike we did in the Pyrenees mountains. It took us 3-4 hours to get up to the top and then another 2 to get back. Some parts were really steep and some of the forrest we went through was beautiful. It was a hard climb but the view once we made it to the top was worth every step! It was almost like it wasn't real, the immensity of it sucked you in. Having lunch up on that mountain is something I'll never forget!

Look at that view! Unreal!

On top of the world!