Bordeaux

 Saying goodbye to Micah and Jonah was definitely not a highlight. It was so wonderful to be able to travel with them, spend time with them, and be together. I hope we get more opportunities to do this throughout our lives. I especially enjoyed when they played Space Team. It brought back such pleasant memories.

Getting from Paris to Bordeaux involved the regular metro to the big train station, taking the train, and then wandering around near the Bordeaux train station figuring out whether and what to eat and how we wanted to get to our hotel that was the most Bed and Breakfast place in which we stayed. There were many stairs and three different Parisians helped me lug my large suitcase either up or down those stairs. People are good!

We took a taxi to our hotel where we stored our bags behind the breakfast area and went out for a walk. After grabbing a healthy snack of soup, I felt a little ill so I returned to the hotel and sat comfortably in the breakfast area to wait for check in while Mark kept walking around the town. I checked in without Mark and was able to rest there instead. And the room was fantastic! It was large and even had a second room with two beds where Micah and Jonah could have slept had they still been with us for this portion of the trip. Plus the breakfast was extensive and generous and delicious: there were two types of cereal available with milk, hot or cold coffee, tea, croissants and bread with jam and caramel (yum!) and butter, fruit plate over ham and cheese (yes, we skipped the ham), and a house made yogurt. I put the raspberry jam into the yogurt with some honey to make it work for me! Very satisfying.

On our first full day in Bordeaux, Mark went to the morning minyan at the synagogue. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to pray and only saw their after minyan breakfast. I tried to join him but it took me too long to get there so we went back at 7 pm for the evening minyan. The service was very short and the members were super friendly! They let us see the sanctuary and inside was the largest menorah I have even seen in my life. Yes, even bigger than those Chabad menorahs displayed outdoors in the US. We ended our day with a Middle Eastern street food restaurant called Rimon where I had hummus and mushrooms with pita and Mark had Israeli salad, lemonade, and an orange chocolate mousse.

That scrumptious meal at the chateau

In between those two meals just described, we had an absolutely wonderful day with Bertran, Mark's friend from Crocker Middle School. He lives in France and had some work to do in Bordeaux and we were lucky that he could have the day off to show us around. He picked us up at the hotel, gifting us with the famous Bordeaux canneles. We drove to a chateau for some beautiful scenery, interesting architecture, and an absolutely amazing lunch at the fancy restaurant. After the lunch, we drove to a family owned winery at another chateau where he had arranged for us a wine tasting and tour. Again, fantastic! Bertran was a gracious and loquacious host who showed his knowledge of food and wine! It was a definite highlight of our trip. and would have been much more difficult for us to accomplish without his assistance.

A beautiful view in Bordeaux

Stones resembling the wine grapes ready for crushing

At the wine tasting