The three musketeers planned to take a train to an old wine town outside Bordeaux and stroll around this charming old town soaking up the medieval ambience. It was raining so hard this morning that the only thing that was going to get soaked was us. Ever flexible, we went to Plan B and spent a pleasant hour or so shooting the breeze in John and Jan’s cozy, warm and dry apartment. The rain let up a bit and we decided to tour the city by tram🚊. Bordeaux has a nice modern tram system. You can get an all day pass for 5 bucks. That is a pretty good deal. Don’t even think about riding the tram without a ticket. At a stop mid way through our tour five burly well armed French policemen 👮♂️ boarded the tram and started checking tickets. The people that did not have tickets got a lecture and a citation. One of these ticket scofflaws decided that instead of admitting guilt, apologizing, and graciously accepting his citation, he would get in the cop’s face and go on a Gallic tirade. I am talking about a five year old who needs a nap tirade. The entire time that the cop was writing the citation, the offender was in the cop’s face jabbering at him. Verbally abusing a cop is not a good idea in America and it did not appear that the cop on the tram in Bordeaux appreciated the backchat. Just a little advice for all you tram riders in Bordeaux. Buy a ticket! If you get caught without a ticket, keep your mouth shut 🤐, thank the cop for your citation and promise never again to attempt to ride the tram without a ticket. And finally, wish the cop a bon jour, which I think means good day.
This is the Maritime Bourse in Bordeaux. The River Garon runs through Bordeaux and then on to the sea. Bordeaux has always been a major French port.
This is one of the remaining gates of the medieval wall that at one time surrounded Bordeaux.
We took the tram down to a food court and had a delicious lunch. This is a French food court so it has beer and great wine and delicious made to order food. I could not find a McDonalds, Burger King or Orange Julius, the fast food joint, not our President, in this food court. I had rotisserie chicken and couscous and a beer🍺. After lunch we continued our tram tour of Bordeaux. After an hour or so Jan decided to go back to the apartment and John and I found a cozy Irish pub, Molly Malone’s, with a fake fireplace, where we whiled away the rest of the afternoon shooting the breeze over a few Irish brewskis. 🍻
After our stop at Molly Malone’s it was dinner time and we repaired to a local brassiere, The Evidence. Evidence of what I don’t know.
When you go to a brassiere in France they don’t give you a menu. They have a chalkboard with their offerings for the day and they bring this chalkboard to your table and let you order from the chalkboard. In my case I pointed to something that I hoped wasn’t pickled pigs feet and said please and thank you in French. Tonight I hit the jackpot and inadvertently ordered a mushroom risotto.
I have said it before and I will say it again, the French have their faults as hosts to ugly Americans such as your humble correspondent, but if you get beyond that the food and the wine are outstanding. Every meal is a delight and every glass of wine is like fairy dust on your palate.
I hope everyone had a great Tuesday. And for you people in the US of A, I hope you voted. I don’t care care how you voted. The most important thing is that you did vote and that you respect everyone’s right to vote for the candidate they believe will do the best job. Let’s stop hating each other because we support different political parties or different candidates. I saw enough of that on the Camino to last me a lifetime and I am sick of it. As Rodney King said a long time ago, ” Why can’t we all just get along?”
Goodnight from Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷 and thank you John and Jan for being such generous and gracious hosts. You two are the best! Thank you for making my stay in Bordeaux so memorable.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 