August 11, 2006
Day 33: Bordeaux: A city and a wine
We enjoy this city. We walk, we ride, we take the tourist mini-train around town, we go to the train station to see about tickets from La Rochelle to Paris, we look for an Internet café to book a hotel in Paris for when we arrive, we have a sumptuous meal.
I'm surprised that it isn't at all easy to find an Internet café, even after I learn it's called cyber café. I was expecting the opposite in a cosmopolitan city like Bordeaux. Perhaps most everyone has Internet at home. In less developed countries, Estonia for example, we have found the @ sign in the middle of nowhere, and always free. After chasing around the city for quite a while, we find what we are looking for and successfully make an online booking at an affordable hotel next to the Gare de Montparnasse where our train to Paris will arrive.
The next surprise is at the train station. So far, our two train experiences were positive and we foresee no problems getting to Paris by train with our bikes as local trains all take bikes. At the ticket counter we get a flat 'not possible' response, they only have TGV's between La Rochelle and Paris and they don't take bikes. We are both sure that we can take local trains, it will just involve changing trains along the way. But the employee at the window is adamant, she doesn't have these connections in her computer and it is therefore not possible! We insist, we argue and finally convince another employee to try to find connections. He is successful and glows with pride at his achievement. It seems even the personell at the train station has forgotten how to use a timetable and just relies on the programmed information in their computers.
In the course of the trip we have been indulging ourselves more and more often in good food and wine. We are also spending more than we had planned. But you live only once, no? That's a convincing argument, especially at the end of the day when you're hungry. And when you're in Bordeaux. This evening we eat outdoors, it's just warm enough, on the Place du Parlement, watch the children chasing pigeons, people out for their evening stroll, tourists studying menus outside the restaurants. We have an excellent meal, an unsurpassed crème brulée for dessert and an unforgettable Bordeaux wine.
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