Bordeaux
Our first day in Bordeaux ended as it began at the Palais de la Bourse, one of the great sights of classical European architecture. As the rising sun lit the building from the east, our Captain skillfully turned the ship in midstream to come alongside the quay adjacent to the Bourse after a nocturnal navigation of the Gironde and Garonne rivers. After several years of renovation, energetically pursued by the city's dynamic mayor, Alain Juppé, the river frontage has been restored to its Age of Enlightenment glory. The disused warehouses and cranes that cluttered the waterfront until recently have been removed to reveal one of the most completely uniform eighteenth-century façades that Europe has to offer.
Our morning walking tour started at Place de la Bourse, conceived as an ensemble of elegant buildings to be constructed in an arc encompassing the first open public square in France. Work began in 1731 under the direction of the architect Jacques Gabriel and, in 1743, an equestrian statue of the reigning monarch, King Louis XV was erected in the square to mark the completion of what was then named Place Royale. The statue was destroyed during the French Revolution and the square renamed. A close inspection of the exterior of the Bourse reveals fine wrought-iron balconies on the first floor with numerous keystone masks at the second and third floors.
The interior, as we discovered at our evening Gala Dinner, held in the Salle des Commissions, is equally magnificent. We were welcomed by on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and ushered up the celebrated Tourny staircase, with its double stairway, to a cocktail reception. Our meal, served beneath imposing canvases of original artwork depicting the early maritime history of the city, was as deftly presented as it was gastronomically satisfying, with complementary wines accompanying successive courses. As we returned to the ship, now bathed in moonlight on the adjacent quayside, we could be forgiven for thinking we had been transported back in space and time to the Age of Elegance.
Our first day in Bordeaux ended as it began at the Palais de la Bourse, one of the great sights of classical European architecture. As the rising sun lit the building from the east, our Captain skillfully turned the ship in midstream to come alongside the quay adjacent to the Bourse after a nocturnal navigation of the Gironde and Garonne rivers. After several years of renovation, energetically pursued by the city's dynamic mayor, Alain Juppé, the river frontage has been restored to its Age of Enlightenment glory. The disused warehouses and cranes that cluttered the waterfront until recently have been removed to reveal one of the most completely uniform eighteenth-century façades that Europe has to offer.
Our morning walking tour started at Place de la Bourse, conceived as an ensemble of elegant buildings to be constructed in an arc encompassing the first open public square in France. Work began in 1731 under the direction of the architect Jacques Gabriel and, in 1743, an equestrian statue of the reigning monarch, King Louis XV was erected in the square to mark the completion of what was then named Place Royale. The statue was destroyed during the French Revolution and the square renamed. A close inspection of the exterior of the Bourse reveals fine wrought-iron balconies on the first floor with numerous keystone masks at the second and third floors.
The interior, as we discovered at our evening Gala Dinner, held in the Salle des Commissions, is equally magnificent. We were welcomed by on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and ushered up the celebrated Tourny staircase, with its double stairway, to a cocktail reception. Our meal, served beneath imposing canvases of original artwork depicting the early maritime history of the city, was as deftly presented as it was gastronomically satisfying, with complementary wines accompanying successive courses. As we returned to the ship, now bathed in moonlight on the adjacent quayside, we could be forgiven for thinking we had been transported back in space and time to the Age of Elegance.
