Falling for Bordeaux

Falling for Bordeaux!

Turning 23 not long after my arrival in the UK, a Euro birthday getaway was clearly on the cards. Due to the lack of occasions anyone has ever seen me without a glass of red wine in my hand after 3pm, we decided to go to bordeaux (Which is also the top Euro destination for 2015 and I’m a player like that).

We almost missed our 7am flight (who would book a 7am flight… Lauren…) and a pushy french woman who was also running late to gate 34 knocked me over on an escalator because I wasn’t running fast enough but lets not get into those darks times - there was no coffee either.

We arrived in Bordeaux by some miracle and our first priority was obviously coffee and croissants. We arrived at the main tram station in St Jean where we found the first of many stores selling french baguettes and pastries and we made a vow to spend the next two days following a strict diet of bread, cheese and Nutella crepes. We found our home for the next 2 days - a cute french style loft apartment (Airb&b is too easy) conveniently located amongst cobble stones, boutiques and wine bars in the quaint and picturesque centre of “old bordeaux”. Needless to say, we spent the afternoon shopping (french fashion..*sigh*), eating bread and cheese for dinner and drinking wine.

On our second day in Bordeaux Lauren and I took a tour of two Chateaus in the St Emillion wine region (St Emillion produces Merlot so maybe we should have gone to Medoc for the Cab-Sav but we chose St Emillion after hearing it was the prettiest and we were hardly disappointed! - never the less, next time.. Medoc.. its on) The tour was amazing and I fell in love with the Vineyards, the history, the process and of course the wine (and the french man pouring it!) I quickly decided my 3 year English degree was a waste of time because clearly I was born to be involved in the wine industry (I’m in the process of figuring out how to make this happen ASAP - obviously marrying a french boy with a family Vineyard is a strong option)

The weather was less than ideal but we soon forgot it after a few wine tastings (instragram filters will fix those grey skies anyway). We wandered around the Medieval Village of St Emillion which was breath taking despite the weather and we obsessed over traditional macarons which are nothing like the ones you pay too much for in fancy cake stores but SO MUCH BETTER (we brought 10). Exhausted, we went back to Bordeaux and for some more wine (From medoc this time), some snails (had to) and obviously more desert because wtf is a beach body anyway?

We found an off licence wine store and convinced them to pop the cork open for us before we took another bot back to our quirky little home for our final night (which ironically, in Bordeaux, was not equipped with a cork opener.. we searched) we downed the bottle (okay, I had most of it) and before we knew it, it was the next morning and we were back with our favourite budget airline which doesn’t supply free coffee and on our way “home” to London.

It was a sweet escape which was over too soon, many thanks Lauren who had some quality ideas about how to spend two days in Bordeaux and was pretty good company for an Aussie - I'll keep Ya!