France

The idea to go to Bordeaux came from a casual chat in July with Deano before I left Sydney for my job in Europe. Jessie and I had mentioned to a few people in the 6 months prior that we were planning to leave Sydney sometime towards the end of the year. At that stage, our loose plan was still to head to Canada sometime around August. Dean had given me a call one arvo and I updated him that all our plans had been flipped when I was offered the 2 months work in Europe. Because my visa for Canada had still not been successful by June it made sense to take the job in Europe and start our trip there. I mentioned that the new plan was that Jessie would come to Europe in early September and from there we had no plans. By coincidence, Dean had a work trip to London planned for September. He would be meeting up with Brita for some side trips. Being my Birthday on the 16th, we looked at some options, including Oktoberfest in Germany, and decided that Bordeaux would be pretty good. We put the idea to Brita and another friend Abby and locked in a weekend of exploring the famous wine region of France.

Amongst all the trip planning we were each doing for our own individual holidays, we managed to align our arrivals into Bordeaux for the Friday. We started looking at accommodation options on Airbnb that would accommodate the 5 of us. The easiest option would be a large house that would allow us to split the cost. Along with a kitchen to have group cookups and chill after the day spent wine tasting and exploring the region. With an expectation and assumption that getting around would be easy enough, we booked a place about 40 minutes from the city centre and thought nothing else of the logistics until we arrived.

What we’d failed to realise was that, while Bordeaux is quite a large town, the wine region is spread across about 100km in each direction from the city. And that none of these areas are serviced by taxis or any kind of regular public transport at all. Unfortunately, we first realised this after we’d all met in Bordeaux and caught a regional train to the “nearest” station to the Airbnb. So there we were, stranded in a small country village with no way to get to the Airbnb. We each started trying to locate a ride-share option, but having 5 of us our options were near zero. After more than an hour later sitting on our bags, we even discussed the option of catching the next regional train back to Bordeaux to pick up a hire car. Eventually, we managed to get a driver to take Brita and Abby to the house to at least meet the host and collect the keys. Thankfully Brita had some high-school French to lean on and negotiated the driver to return and pick Dean, Jessie and myself up. And for an extra €10 (on top of the outrageous €30 we were paying for the 7-minute drive) we got him to stop at a supermarket for us to pick up some groceries and wines to get us through the first night at least. Having finally arrived, and without any solutions for what the next day would bring, we threw together a smorgasbord of cheese, crackers and canapés and let the wine make everything seem worth it.

Even on this first day of major mistakes in our plan, one thing is clear: we are lucky in Australia to have reliable systems and infrastructure. The annoying thing is, we each had mentioned a few of these things in the lead-up to arriving. Things like getting a car, buying groceries, arranging wine tours, etc. But had each decided they were things we could figure out “when we get there” 🤦‍♂️

We had discussed various options for Saturday and Sunday before arriving but as we each were busy and preoccupied with our individual travels, hadn’t been able to collectively discuss and book anything. Some things we’d looked at were:
1. Formal tours (too expensive)
2. Hire of a Driver and Van (got no responses)
3. Uber between each winery/cellar door (now we realise not feasible)
4. Catch a train to various areas and figure it out (still not possible because we couldn’t get to the station from the Airbnb)

Our seemingly last hope was to score an Uber in the morning from the Airbnb and get us back to Bordeaux and then figure something out from there. We put together another stellar brekkie spread in the morning and set all our ride-share apps to the task of getting us a lift. There was a train scheduled for 11:07 am that would take us to Bordeaux so all we needed was one ordinary-size car to accept the job and do 2 runs and we were set. However, by the time we finally got one on the hook we only had time to get one load to the station. Our only hope was that the driver would be willing to fit four of us across the back seat but the driver dashed our dreams and refused to bend the rules. With that train being the only one until 4 pm (yes really!! That’s how remote we were) we were back to square one and our plans for the day were fading fast. With little hope remaining we decided to grab a beer and walk the streets until opportunity found us a new adventure. The idea was that there had to be something nearby, like a vineyard that we could create our own experience. Who knows.

The nearest village to the Airbnb, which was set in a solely residential suburban area, was Saint Selve. Google Maps showed it to have nothing more than a church and a bakery but that was where we started. Up to this point, all of our research on transport options had been on Google Maps and websites for taxis that we could translate from French. Having had no public transport options show up on Maps we were surprised and excited to find a bus stop in the village. And to our absolute delight, there was a bus scheduled to Bordeaux in about 30 minutes!! Amazingly the bus arrived and with a transfer to a tram halfway along the route we finally made it into civilisation by about 1 pm.

By far the most featured location for tourists in Bordeaux is Saint-Émilion. A medieval-age commune that is full of character and surrounded by vineyards. Now with only half a day, it was common sense for us to head there and at least hit the highlight of the region. After taking another train from Bordeaux we finally arrived for a late lunch. Once again celebrating overcoming the odds of poor planning and useless civil infrastructure with wine and a decent spread of French foods. Having finally arrived somewhere noteworthy of the reputation Bordeaux has, we spent the afternoon strolling the streets and soaking up the atmosphere in the main town square. It turns out that cellar doors that allow walk-in wine tastings are nothing like what we have in Australia. I.e. they don't do it. We found one bar in Saint-Émilion that was doing tastings for a ridiculous price and of the 3 wines sampled, none were really that special. Dean, who had spent a year in France about 10 years ago, had a strong opinion that there was no bad French wine and at each of our grocery shops had been adamant that the €2-3 wines off the shelf were the best. After our full Bordeaux experience, both Jessie and I were definitely not convinced. Having not had the chance to really experience any quality wines, due to the lack of cellar door experience, we’re both not sold on the reputation. (I’ll just put it in the same basket with my perception of French being arrogant and overly snobby… but just my opinion i guess 🤷‍♂️😆)

With another mission still ahead of us to get back to our Airbnb we left Saint-Émilion late afternoon and commenced the return journey. Having now learnt that basically on weekends in regional France, everything is closed. Not only are wine tastings at cellar doors impossible. But also transport from our Airbnb was going to continue to be a punish. The next day we made our way into Bordeaux and hired a car for our remaining 24 hours. At least that was one issue resolved. Having resorted to the fact that the magical Bordeaux experience wasn’t going to eventuate we spent the remaining time exploring the surrounding region. Basically trying to salvage our remaining time in France with something a little less stressful.

Our final afternoon before flying out to Morocco we packed a picnic with some grocery leftovers and went exploring the city centre on foot. It turned out to be the best part of the weekend. Another part of our failure to properly plan and research. Lesson learned that it's critical to thoroughly research. And definitely not rely on assumptions that systems will work the way we expect when travelling to different countries. So with that thought and chapter of the trip finished, off we go to North AfricaRead more