We got to Bordeaux around 1:30 in the afternoon and walked to the Basilica of St. Michel. If you look in my first post on Bordeaux it is the church with the single bell tower. I wasn't able to get a good pic this time because the sun was in the way :( So instead, we sat and ate lunch in front of a 15th century cathedral, right of the square. It was packed with vendors cleaning up from the morning market. We then walked down the very same street that I walked down in one of my earlier visits, only thanks to Colton, I now know what I was looking at.
Its the Place de la Bourse completed in 1755, pretty much the most famous facade for Bordeaux. You can find all sorts of pics online that come pretty close mine. Across the street is the Miror d'Eau-mirror of water, but instead of reflecting la Bourse it was being used by the residents of Bordeaux to help relieve the heat.
Next we took a little side street, just because it looked cool, but just as we were getting ready to turn around I saw a huge columned building & I had to check it out. Turns out that it was the Grand Theatre of Bordeaux c.1780.
We are actually really lucky. Our little shortcut put us right at the center of one of Bordeaux's most famous squares. We probably wouldn't have found this location except for the shortcut, & we weren't far from the Place des Quinconces.
The Place des Quinconces is a large park laid out over the location of a castle that was built in 1453. The park itself was laid out in 1820 to prevent rebellion.
Here are some of the things we saw:
The fountains on either side of the pillar.
A statue if Montesquieu. Why? Montesquieu is the thinker credited with the idea of "separation of powers." The ideal our founders strongly believed in when they wrote the Constitution. So kind of a big deal for a law student.
The majority of the park is a huge flat area of gravel, which they apparently use for little carnivals, fairs, & I would assume concerts & what not. These planes caught my eye because of their historical value. The first is a Mirage 2000, a famous and widely exported fighter, & the second is a SEPECAT Jaguar, famous for its role in Desert Storm.
We continued down the river looking for the other cathedral you probably saw in my first post.
It is the Cathedral of St. Louis, completed in 1880. I know, it isn't that old, but a the main reason is that this cathedral is actually in a part of Bordeaux that was once a small village called Chatrons. The location was once a monastery, and as the Bordeaux area grew, the monastery became a church, then another church, and finally this beautiful cathedral.
How is this for feeling small....
Here are some photos from inside the cathedral.
This is the cathedral's namesake, St. Louis the 9th. A very pious, if very foolish King of France determined to lead a crusade to take back the holy land. Turns out he actually led two crusades. Problem with one of them was that his army was annihilated and he got captured. He left the port of Damietta, which he actually successfully captured, without making the proper logistical considerations, and his over-eager knights charged into Cairo where they were easily massacred. As for Louis second crusade, usually labeled the 8th Crusade, he was talked into attacking Tunis by his older brother Charles of Anjou. Charles was a very nasty fellow who simply wanted control of the port, and why not allow his brother to do it for him. The siege actually broke because of disease amongst the French troops. Louis himself was amongst the dead.
Guess who!! Now here was a more successful military saint. St. Jeanne d'Arc.
One last thing before I take you away from St. Louis. You see engravings like this one all over the place in France. Train stations, building sides, statutes, & of course churches. They are memorials for WWI. This one reads: "In memory of the children of the parish; died for France." After seeing so many of these little reminders, just in Bordeaux, it is hard not to think about how much more this country suffered in both World Wars.
Now for a more pleasant, though unfortunate story. We wanted to go back to the Cathedral that was closed while we were visiting the ENM. We looked on the map for the name & headed in that direction. Turns out we were heading for the wrong church. Oops. We didn't make it all the way because we realized fairly quickly that we were in the wrong part of town. It is amazing how quickly you can go from packed streets to deserted streets in Bordeaux. All turned out okay though, we found the Public Gardens, & took a leisurely stroll through. Turns out the garden was created in the 1700's.
This pick is for my dad...
I have no idea what the tree on the left is, the leaves look something like a magnolia, but the one on the right is a cypress.
Now for the Cathedral of St. Andre. The ground was consecrated in 1096, by the same Pope who called the first crusade. The building itself is enormous, much bigger than St. Louis. I actually don't have the words to describe what it felt like to stand next to this cathedral, much less inside it. It took over four hundred years to build so I have no idea how old each portion of the church in each of these pictures actually is.
I am pretty sure this is the Royal Door, completed in the early 1200's.
Here is the reason I don't have nearly as many pictures of St. Andre as I do of St. Louis. The cathedral was in use for services...
After St. Andre, we walked three or four blocks down the most packed pedestrian street we had seen thus far. My compatriots wanted ice cream, and I was more than willing to take a breather in this little square.
After a nice rest we got kicked out of our seats by the pizzeria whose chairs we were using. It was just re-opening, for the dinner crowd. So we walked straight back to the train station, through a pretty seedy area I might add, and caught a train with 5 minutes to spare. We were actually planning on taking a different train, but hey, why not? All said and done it was an awesome day to stroll through Bordeaux, we walked over 8 1/2 kilometers. What thrills me about that number is these new shoes we bought for the trip are awesome!! For those of you who don't remember, I have really...really flat feet. To walk that far and not be in pain at the end is a completely new feeling for me. I am just sore, not in pain!! I can't believe it!!! Mom, Dad, go back to that shoe salesman sometime and give him a hug.
We finished the evening on the patio watching the waves, drinking wine & Madeira. Colton even let me try a few puffs of the Cuban he bought. :D
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