Paris & Bordeaux ::: days 4 & 5

We expected cold and rain on Monday - our original date to spend at the French Open - and when we woke up, we got it.

The gates opened at 11am, so we walked around St. Germain for a bit in the cold, and finally had decided to have some quiche and hot coffee at Gerard Mulot  - who also serves up some killer macaroon's. Joel and I did not want to wait in line at a Laudree, so asked a few locals and they said this was the better local option. 

 Roland Garros will suspend play if the courts get too wet but we decided to go early in hopes that we would get at least a few games in for the day

We got lucky and our 1pm afternoon match started with only a short delay.

We watched Kei Nishiqori (9th in the world) play and lose to Martin Klizan - which was quite the upset. 

The game was wet, rainy, and friggen freezing, but it was surprisingly a lot of fun to sit huddled under an umbrella and watch the French Open. 

 

The rain was on and off all afternoon, and even though Joel would have stayed, I wasn't super excited about another match in the rain, so we decided to head out.

The weather cleared by 5pm and it was our last night in Paris before a mini-trip to Bordeaux, so we decided to walk around and soak in as much as we could in. 

I even got to catch another glimpse of my favorite tower ever.

 

Our walk took us into the real "neighborhood-y" part of St. Germain and I'm pretty sure Joel and I would have put up our life savings if someone would have sold us their townhome then and there. It is just the quaintest little area, and since the sun was finally coming out, it seemed like everyone was enjoying their few minutes of the sun.

 

We sat outside this cute little park, had a glass of wine, warmed up a bit and just lingered. Strangely enough, even though this hour of our trip wasn't all that exciting, it was one of my most favorite of our entire time there.

I can't pin point exactly why I loved this afternoon in this tiny part of St. Germain, but I think it was because I felt like for that one hour there, we were part of this town. We watched people get out of work, ride their bikes home to their families, meet girlfriends for happy hour - and we just pretended that we were one of them.

Our dinner spot - Le 20, recommended by Laura of course - was near the Musre d'Orsay, so on our walk over to dinner we walked the grounds - and learned that even if we had wanted to go in, it's closed on Mondays. 

So, when we got to dinner - full disclosure, we almost left.

First of all, it was empty, and the vibe was just off. They were also playing techno American music that made honestly me want to cry. Pretty sure I heard "Ring my Bell, el, elllll" on repeat at least 12x.

We debated like 20 times leaving, and finally - probably out of exhaustion, just decided to screw it and stay. 

I'm so glad we did, because an hour later - closer to 9, the restaurant filed up....the music changed...and so did our moods. We ordered their amazing escargot and Steak Frites and both were majorly on point. So freaking good. 

 

On our walk home, I realized that we hadn't had a banana nutella street crepe - and that just had to happen, so we searched for a vendor and when I got that damn thing, I savored every last bite.

Why don't we have these on every block in the US?

     

Tuesday, Day 5 ::: Bordeaux

We woke up around 6:30 in the morning to take an 8am train to Bordeaux. We took the high-speed train, the TGV, from the Montparnasse station.

Finding and getting on the train was really easy, and the train left from the station right on time. We had bought our tickets ahead of time and I think each ticket cost us about $220. We sat in an upgraded cabin, which was really comfortable, but decided to splurge on the high speed train to Bordeaux since it only took 3.5 hours to get there - and with a 10 day trip, time is money.

I slept like a baby the entire ride, and loved traveling by train. It's so easy, and way more comfortable than an airplane, so I would highly recommend it. 

When we got to Bordeaux, we took the city's trolley from the train station into the middle of their downtown and walked to our hotel - Le Boutique.

 

The hotel was really great, and even though we got there 3 hours before check-in, they made arrangements and had us in a clean room in ten minutes. As soon as we freshened up, we took to the streets of Bordeaux to learn our new home for the next few days and get acquainted as quickly as we could.

We started with a long lunch at L'Orleans, which I had read on a blog was a perfect place to dine al fresco. 

We split a crab tartare, some cheese, and loved every second of our time there.

 

After some espresso, we geared up for an afternoon of walking the city. 

 

Bordeaux was like a smaller, cleaner version of Paris, and very, very easy to get used to. The city has tons of great restaurants and a lot of shopping - but we came to Bordeaux for the wine.

 

In the middle of downtown they have a famous wine  sommelier school - that I had read a lot about in researching Bordeaux.

Their version of a school library is a bar (I should have been a sommelier) so we ended our walking tour there, had some wine, and read a bunch of guide books that they had out for display.

 

 One of the books included a bunch of wine tours and classes available in Bordeaux through their Bureau of Tourism. We found a wine tour and class that we wanted to sign up for, took pictures of the information, and then had a conceirge at the hotel make arrangments for us. 

For dinner, our hotel recommended Le Nouilles for a classic French bistro which is exactly what we wanted.

The service was excellent and we went all the way with the French bistro vibe. We of course had our first of many amazing bottles of Bordeaux and started with the best Oysters I've ever had in my life - fresh from Normandy.

 

 

Dinner was spectacular - but after our full travel day, we were pretty exhausted by 9pm so we decided to go back to the hotel bar for just one night cap.

Yea....well....we met another American couple in the bar and literally stayed up with them until almost in the morning. They had to leave that following morning to go back to Florida - and even though we paid for it the next morning, the four of us had so much fun together and we decided that Bordeaux was going to be very, very good to us.