Bordeaux

Sitting on the train to Bordeaux, France (leaving from Paris) I had a couple of other travelers in the train car.  I quickly found out that the gentleman sitting next to me spoke English though he still needed some practice and the lady across from me was very quiet until I got her talking about her children, their families and her 28 grandchildren.  She was from Australia, but on her way to visit them.  The last member of our car was around twenty years old and was dressed for the summer.  The gentleman next to me would talk to me but never took his eyes off of the young french student.  She said what university she attended but I could not reproduce it as she was speaking in French.  The train hurried on it way passing Beaugency and then farther south through Blois.

I had a layover for a couple of hours in Tours.  Two hours is really only enough time to stretch your legs and grab a bite to eat but not really long enough to site see.  Back on the train we crossed the river La Frillie’re, I really like water and all of the beauty to see around it.  Back when I was in college we would float down the river on our backs using just a wet suit.  It was the Yakima, a small and sometimes fast river.  Those were the good old days!

I slept through Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine and was eating in the restaurant car while we went through Cha’tellerault and Poitiers.  At Angoule’me still going south we crossed another river, the river Lavagnac and turned West at the town of Arveyres.  The river on our right and my car facing to the left I could see the town and I noticed a little orchard with trees all lined up in perfect rows in the distance.  I could not tell what type of trees or fruit they may have produced because they were too far away to see.  I am very interested because I live in Wenatchee, Washington and they have many fruit orchards, I even have one behind my back fence.  Pears if I remember correctly.  You know the word Arvory in Portuguese means Tree.  I wounder if they had a lot of trees in the area?  Must have been a long time ago because most of the trees have been replaced by farm land… anyways, I digress.

The train then passed through some city like areas.  The homes were thicker in the Bassens suburb.  There was some industrial buildings to the right of the train that kind of follow the river.  I think we were really getting close to Bordeaux.  I am told that we are only a few minutes away from the train station by the gentleman sitting next to me.  He still has not stopped staring at the 20 year old university student the whole trip; he is really missing some great scenery.  The river was a blue-green farther up but now it has a brown kind of stirred up look.  Maybe the industrial park had something to do with that.

I said my good-byes to my fellow passengers as we got off the train at the Gare Saint-Jean train station.  It took me some time to get to the front exit of the station, as it is big.  I am standing in front of the station and I have two roads in front of me.  “Which one should I take” I ask my self.  The roads are Rue (Rue means Road by the way), so Rue Saint-Vincent De Paul and Rue Euge’ne Le Roy.  What is it with all of the saints!  Seems like everything is named after a saint in France.  Lots of Catholic influence from back in the day I guess.  You think they would have run out of saints by now.  I am not liking everything being name after a saint so I chose Rue Euge’ne Le Roy.

I secure my pack onto my back and am off down the road Eugene.  I go two blocks and come to Aquitain Hotel Sarl on my left.  It is late afternoon so I decided that this looked like a likely spot to find a bed.  I went in.  After getting my room key and heading for the elevator I noticed the restaurant.  So I droped my pack in the room and go to get some dinner.  There are some couples in the restaurant but mostly business types.  Must have something to do with the business buildings across the road from the hotel.  The food was great though I was pretty messed up by the train food that I had eaten for dats.  After finishing my meal, which I had to point at the menu to order because my waiter did not speak English.  I headed to my room for the night.

The room is comfortable and after breakfast I grab my pack and I am off.  I had planned to walk all through this city because I have some time in my schedule.  There were not very many people on the road this early in the morning.  I decided to continue down Rue Eugene till I ran into a road that said it was a dead end.  Before takign it I took a look at my map and decide to go right on Rue Malbec.  There were lots of homes on this road all packed really tight together.  Looks like they were sharing walls.  That is not uncommon in many parts of the world, but very common here it seemed.  I also saw a lot of that when I lived in Bazil  but they were built out of brick and cement not wood.  I decided to go right because my map showed a main road called Course de la Marne a couple of blocks up.  Once I found the road I continued left for several blocks.  By this time it was getting hot out and my brain was telling me that I needed to find some shade.  That is when I saw the park across the road from where I was.  That was perfect, my first park in Bordeaux and just in time because I needed the shade.

This park was mostly walkways and benches surrounded by trees.  The park looked old and well used.  They must have had a pool of water maybe a fountain in the center of the park at one point of time.  Now the center is a big hole with no pool and no fountain.  Either they ran out of money to keep things going or they were getting ready to make a change.  Hard to tell what they were planning to do and with a lack of tourist activity to motivate them it could be sitting for a long time.  The was honestly the only part of the park that looked bad.  The rest was great and I especially liked the green grass under foot.  I even removed my shoes to  feel the grass between my toes.  I loved this park just the way that it was and I do not think that I would have enjoyed it as much as I did if it was more of a touristy park.

I really enjoy seeing areas of cities that have not been polluted by the invasion of people.  Including the fact that as in many areas of Brazil you can walk freely with out being attacked by vendors trying to sell you little pieces of junk that tourists must have to remember their trip.  I am off on another topic that is better left alone… or I will go on forever.  But truly I really have to comment on the parks.

I seem to have a knack for finding parks with wonderful grass and trees in all of my travels.  Seems to be that people have a need to get back to nature.  France and Brazil have wonderful parks and they seem to be in all the cities even though they are not plagued by tourist.  People have a need to escape the cement jungle and get close to a tree to smell the flowers as it were.  I really think that says something about the human race, no matter what culture, a park that takes you back into natures grip is a wonderful thing.

Place de la Victoire

I am off once again as I continue down Course de la Marne life has began to emerge from homes as stores open and the city takes on a new day.  Several blocks from the park I come to a square that intersects a couple of roads.  Not long after reaching it I found myself standing at the center of the square trying to decide which road or rue to follow.  I stood next to a square pillar at the center of the square, though square is not really the right word as this square is round.  Another cool site at this location was the Roman looking doorway at one end of the Square.  The statue is not a person but more of a symbol of something though I cannot tell what it says on the bronze plaque.  Just then I noticed a post card on a rack next to a news stand of what looks like a big ball made of lines that has some roads going to it and around it.  It is an aerial shot of an intersection with a giant globe made out of white lines.  I am like “wow that is really cool, I need to go and find this thing”.  I bought the post card to send to friends and as I made my purchase, which I tried to do speaking broken French.  I asked about the the location on the post card.  The man finally understood me and pointed tot he statue located at the center of this square.  “No, no” I say and he points to the post card and then to the center of the square again.  My mind is like a steel trap and things finally start to come together.  The stark white lines, four rows of small square cobblestones, across that run all over this square are what form the giant ball that can only be seen from very high up in the sky.

Cool that I have found it I learned that it is called the Place de la Victoire, not cool that I almost walked on it and almost never knew what I was walking on I must have been distracted by the sculpture of the turtle with a beard.

I will continue to explore the city of Bordeaux in my next post.

Lord out

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