Bordeaux, France
We picked up our pilot just after midnight at the mouth of the majestic Gironde river which courses through the lowland vineyards of the world-renowned Bordeaux region. Some sixty miles inland this river divides to form the Dordogne and Garonne. The city of Bordeaux is sited on the banks of the latter. In 56 BC Crassus, one of Caesars lieutenants, managed to take military control of the area known as Aquitaine and established a thriving Roman trading settlement at this site. Under threat of potential invasion in the third century AD the settlement was heavily fortified with a substantial stone wall flanked by fifty towers. This was to survive and develop into the city of Bordeaux which was modernized at the beginning of the eighteenth century when squares, tree-lined avenues and public promenades were laid out. Recently the riverfront buildings have been renovated and cleaned by sandblasting and a new electric tram system began operating earlier this year.
Our morning was occupied with walks around this cosmopolitan city which boasts an impressive array of vestiges from its illustrious past. We visited the Cathedrale St. Andre whose fabric mostly dates from the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Its scale and workmanship are truly remarkable. The morning light streaming in through the massive stained glass windows was an apt colorful backdrop to this medieval structure. The walks ended at the Place des Quinconces where we viewed the superb ensemble of bronze sculptures which were fashioned and put in place in the fountains between 1894 and1902. Following lunch some of the guests went shopping or exploring independently. Others joined one of the organized visits which went to the Botanic Gardens and the Aquitaine Museum. The latter houses a rich collection of archaeological and folklife material. A large number of artifacts from the Palaeolithic Period were on display including those fashioned by Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. All of these were found in the valleys of the Dordogne and Vezere rivers which flow across a limestone plateau which afforded excellent cave and rock shelter sites for our ancient ancestors to inhabit. This area was a veritable vortex of human development in the distant past. Excavations here have produced huge assemblages of stone tools many of which date back as far as 500,000 years. The museum also displays a collection of material from the Roman period of the city’s development.
We picked up our pilot just after midnight at the mouth of the majestic Gironde river which courses through the lowland vineyards of the world-renowned Bordeaux region. Some sixty miles inland this river divides to form the Dordogne and Garonne. The city of Bordeaux is sited on the banks of the latter. In 56 BC Crassus, one of Caesars lieutenants, managed to take military control of the area known as Aquitaine and established a thriving Roman trading settlement at this site. Under threat of potential invasion in the third century AD the settlement was heavily fortified with a substantial stone wall flanked by fifty towers. This was to survive and develop into the city of Bordeaux which was modernized at the beginning of the eighteenth century when squares, tree-lined avenues and public promenades were laid out. Recently the riverfront buildings have been renovated and cleaned by sandblasting and a new electric tram system began operating earlier this year.
Our morning was occupied with walks around this cosmopolitan city which boasts an impressive array of vestiges from its illustrious past. We visited the Cathedrale St. Andre whose fabric mostly dates from the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Its scale and workmanship are truly remarkable. The morning light streaming in through the massive stained glass windows was an apt colorful backdrop to this medieval structure. The walks ended at the Place des Quinconces where we viewed the superb ensemble of bronze sculptures which were fashioned and put in place in the fountains between 1894 and1902. Following lunch some of the guests went shopping or exploring independently. Others joined one of the organized visits which went to the Botanic Gardens and the Aquitaine Museum. The latter houses a rich collection of archaeological and folklife material. A large number of artifacts from the Palaeolithic Period were on display including those fashioned by Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. All of these were found in the valleys of the Dordogne and Vezere rivers which flow across a limestone plateau which afforded excellent cave and rock shelter sites for our ancient ancestors to inhabit. This area was a veritable vortex of human development in the distant past. Excavations here have produced huge assemblages of stone tools many of which date back as far as 500,000 years. The museum also displays a collection of material from the Roman period of the city’s development.
