France Day Huit: Wino Forever

Bonjour! I've returned from a vacation in France and now for the travel diary because my memory is terrible so I need to recap it all. This was a family vacation to catch the Euro Cup courtesy of my aunt and uncle, without them, this trip wouldn't have happened.

France Day Huit

As there was another Euro match the guys were scheduled to watch in Bordeaux, we drove to nearby Chateau de la Brede only to be disappointed that it wasn’t open for viewing. It is a castle with a moat according to Wiki so that sucks because I would have totally pretended to be a Queen in the midst of a fierce battle where opposing forces are trying to take her castle, and possibly her life. DRRRAAAAAAAMMMAAAAAA!!! 

You can stand outside but you can't come in.

But every cloud has a silver lining and we chanced upon a nice restaurant situated in the centre ville near a church (also closed!!) – La Table de Montesquieu. I had the set meal which consisted of a beef tartare starter (meh, not really my kind of thing), haddock with rice (yum, I love haddock and I LOVE RICE FOREVER), followed by a pineapple, rum and ice cream dessert which was my second favourite dessert of the trip (my favourite was the apple pie from Monsieur Jeannot). It was so simple yet really delicious. Plus alcohol. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzed. 

The most modern interior design we'd seen

Happy dancing men because of wine I guess

Beef tartare plus little squiggles

Shrimp guarding the salad

Sausage and oysters - strange combo no?

Very rare steak

Haddock, rice and possible mushroom gravy - hard to tell

Love this big time

Ice cream perhaps

The best way to end a meal

The guys departed for the game and my uncle’s cousin and I made our way towards Bordeaux centre for yet more shopping. We headed to Rue Ste Catherine which is the main shopping street, and sadly I couldn’t manage to finish walking through it because I only had two hours. SOB. While Toulouse is the bigger city, there’s just something really charming and historical about Bordeaux, so sorry Toulouse but I  <3 Bordeaux more. 

OMG apparently I took a total of ZERO photos of Bordeaux. Because shopping. 

We met up with the football hooligans fans at the Cite du Vin, a huge museum that’s all about wine and probably 70% filled with alcohol. This museum is famous for its modern architecture that juxtaposes the historical architecture of the city. PERFECT FOR OOTDS!! 

Serious OOTD business

Just strolling through the wine park yo.

Behold! The Cite du Vin!

As we left the museum, we dropped off for a gas top up along the highway and ended up destroying our appetites by eating a huge chunk of fries from Auto Grill. These fries were good, like the MacDonald’s fries. YUM. Couldn’t eat dinner after of course. Such an idiot. 

MMM fries

Food coma

Key learnings:

• Things are often closed in France it would seem. BOOO HISS.
• Must make pineapple, rum and vanilla ice cream as a dessert for dinner parties – it’ll be a hit
• Bordeaux is beautiful – go for the architecture, stay for the shopping
• My uncle’s cousin and her husband are big wine drinkers so they know their stuff – people pay for rarity, rather than actual quality. So for example, if there’s a really awesome wine, but it’s made in excess, it has less value, no matter how yums the wine. Sometimes, the excess wine produced will be sold off under a different brand so as not to lessen the value of the original vineyard’s wine.
• Red wines need to be aired for about half an hour, while people don’t normally air white wines, which are less complex.
• Burgundy wines are the most expensive, and can cost as much as $30,000 a bottle which is CRAZYPANTS. I am clearly in the wrong line of work. 

Thanks for reading!