Day 420: To Bordeaux, via Blaye

Long drive today. Left Carcassonne around 11 and headed north-west for about 4 hours of driving in total, though we stopped briefly to eat some baguettes.

We arrived in a place called Blaye just north of Bordeaux around 3pm to check out part of a World Heritage site. In the 17th century there was a French military engineer named Sebastian Vauban who was tasked with fortifying the country's borders. Many of the designs he came up with lasted well into the 20th century, and they're scattered all across the edges of the country (though only 12 are on the World Heritage list).

This one in the town of Blaye is a river fort, a large fort guarding the river that runs directly down to Bordeaux, once France's most important port. It's interesting because it's designed to withstand attack from both land and sea, and there's a gun tower in the middle of the wide river, plus a smaller sister fort on the other bank (though it was a long drive around to get there, so we skipped).

Spent an interesting couple of hours wandering around looking at things, and Schnitzel enjoyed rolling around on the grass here as well. It's really starting to feel like spring, the trees aren't quite so bare anymore and lots of flowers are blooming. About fricken time if you ask me!

About an hour back south to Bordeaux where we went to the supermarket, then checked into our Airbnb. It's in a commuter town about 10km west of the city proper, though it has a nice little village feel to it. Our apartment is a total bachelor pad, with a huge TV, an Xbox and blazing fast internet connection, though a few broken things, some spotty cleanliness and a pretty poorly equipped kitchen! Oh well, we'll be comfortable enough here for the next five nights. I celebrated moving in by watching the Champions League football on the huge TV which Shandos was definitely impressed with!Read more