We are now ensconced in the Hotel Majestic in the heart of Bordeaux, where we actually have WIFI in our ROOM as well as television! I got to see some of the French Open this afternoon! Yipee!
Up about 7 and to gather ourselves. We walked down for our last WIFI check at the wonderful Hotel Royal Vezere, then R bought our morning croissants, and finally to the post office to mail a box. We have discovered over the years that the French international postal boxes work incredibly well, and certainly do lighten the load on luggage! We shipped back mostly paper products, such as books and maps that we no longer have need of, as well as our kitchen supplies, a few tins of pate, some salt, and various other things we’d collected during the past couple of weeks.
Home for breakfast, and then the clean-up of the house. As it really wasn’t dirty, it didn’t take too long to accomplish; I packed the suitcases while R did dishes and ran the vacuum cleaner. Just as we were putting the cases into the car, Pat, the housekeeper for the owner of the house dropped by. Had a really nice chat with her; she and her husband are Brits who relocated to this part of France about 11 years ago, and now make this their full-time home. Very interesting talking about various local places to visit; hope to see her again the next time we come this way! We turned the house keys over to her, and were on the road about 10:30 a.m. It is actually very overcast today, and as we pulled out of Le Bugue, there was a very fine mist falling – made for ideal driving weather!
We took a very rambling route into Bordeaux. Emmy kept trying to put us on to the motorway, but we keep breaking off on to side roads. The trip normally takes about 2 hours, but we managed to make it in 2 ½ going round and about a bit. Passed thousands and thousands of grape vines…obviously they do that well here!
Found our way to the Hotel Majestic with no trouble at all. Dropped our suitcases (their very tiny garage was full) and headed to Parking Jean-Jaures, just down the street to leave the car. We’re in a lovely, large room with three sets of French windows. As the wind is rather brisk today, we changed into jeans and headed out the door looking for a late lunch. The hotel recommended restaurant Karl, which was only a few blocks away, in Place du Parliament. Karl is a soup and salad kind of place, and our salads were wonderful! Robert again had the vegetarian salad, which this time came with white cheese, beets, egg, tomato, carrots, lettuce and a huge pile of sliced mushrooms. My salad Karl came with marinated chicken, sun dried tomatoes and grilled aubergine; it was great!
By this time, we were both rather sleepy, so back to the hotel for nice naps. Up around 6 and R went to work on some Caltech business. I watched the French Open on TV! As we had had such a large and late lunch, we weren’t particularly hungry, but needed to get something. So, out again around 8, and this time found a small Japanese restaurant, which was just what we needed. We both had soup, salad and rice, some ebi sushi, and then small skewers of beef, chicken and shrimp. Perfect ending to a lovely day!
Back in the hotel and I for one will be heading to bed soon. We want to be on the road to the airport by 7, to catch our plane to Luton, so up early to repack everything!
More tomorrow!
Much love,
m
x
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