We'll take a bottle of the house wine, please

Bordeaux se trouves itself in the southwest of France. (You Frenchies out there will know that that phrase is redundant, but in order to use franglais here, I have to say it like that.) Last weekend, Tanya, Pamela and I spent the weekend eating, drinking, and exploring in France's wine capital. Françoise was very encouraging of our trip. The night before we left, she asked, "Why are you going to Bordeaux? It's not that pretty compared to other cities in France." Thanks, F. Really positive of you.

Thankfully, her kind words were easily dismissed when we arrived in the center of town. Bordeaux is beautiful, with stunning architecture, narrow streets, and a beautiful boardwalk lining the river that runs through the city. We found our hotel--a simple but clean little place about a 15 minute's walk from the center of things--then headed out to explore.

One of our main goals was, of course, to drink lots of wine. We did pretty well over the course of the weekend, going through a bottle at each meal. We usually just ordered the house wine, on the assumption that in a place known for its vin, whatever's on the house must be good. Aside from walking and sight seeing, we mostly just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine. We also visited a wine chateaux near the medieval village of St Emilion. The chateaux was a huge womp womp moment, as it was simply a little old house where they processed and bottled wine. Definitely not a castle by any means, but it was still enjoyable.

And so was Bordeaux. A weekend well spent. Take that, F.