A Day By The Seaside

Last week, we discovered Arcachon, a beautiful seaside village located on a bay.  It is west of Bordeaux and about an hour's ride on the train from Bordeaux.  It was a totally random town and didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be amazing.  Arcachon is a beach resort, not too touristy, and we were able to relax and enjoy the sun and sand.  The town was centered on the “bassin de arcachon” and overlooked a bay that was fed from the Atlantic Ocean.

We had just missed the last ferry out to Cap Ferret, so we spent the day walking around on the board walk looking at all the beautiful houses, apartments, more architecture, as well as the first French beaches. Well, the first beaches we have seen in Europe really.  They were nice, but South Coast beaches in New South Wales are still much better.

In the evening we were invited to a dinner party along with Steph to her friends' apartment in Arcachon, it was here that we got to taste the most 'cheese-tastic' Camembert fondue.  They basically take the camembert and wrap it in foil and then put it in the oven. You then carefully unwrap and skim off the top hard layer and dig in with small pieces of bread.

Today we returned to Arcachon to see Cap Ferret and the Dune du Plait.  As we exited the train station at Arcachon we realised we were quite hungry so we decided to stop and have a bite to eat.  We were travelling with Floyd, another Australian that we had met from Melbourne who is also staying with Steph in Bordeaux.

After settling on a seafood restaurant, the boys ordered a delicious seafood platter, that was meant for 1 person, but as it turned out it was massive and they couldn't finish all of it together, came close though.

After lunch we caught a ferry across to Cap Ferret. We stepped off the ferry and decided to walk to the other side of Cap Ferret towards the Atlantic.  It took about 15 minutes at a slow pace. When we reached the beach we could see the old WWII embattlements, mostly covered by sand and graffiti.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to visit the Dune du Plait, but I imagine it's much like Lancelin sand dunes.

WWII Bunkers

Some fishing off the wharf

Us on the Atlantic ocean

Arcachon Town

Arcachon Town

Cap Ferret

Wine & Chateau's in Medoc

Bordered by forests and the grand estuary of the Gironde in Southwest France is one of the world's most revered wine growing regions - The Medoc.

Immaculately groomed vineyards awaited us, steeped in a history of grape cultivation that has led to the production of many vintage red Medoc-Bordeaux wines during the last few centuries. 

We began our tour of Medoc by driving through the small villages and family run chateau's to one of the larger chateau's in which we were lucky enough to have a tour on.  Although the tour was  in French, sometimes it was translated to German or English (basically, when they wanted to tell us - how "much greater" their wine producing methods were in comparison to others).

Unfortunately, we were unable to taste the wine as they only do that on the weekends by appointment, and were there on a Thursday. The chateau was no longer family run, it was owned by 3 corporations, a Japanese company, a German and a French company and no-one lived in this gorgeous chateau either which was a bit sad.  The gardens were beautifully maintained and had a lawn with a view to the river.

Inside the chateau was just as cool, there was the old castle bit - where they keep all the old/vintage bottles of wine - for example, there were wines from 1971 onwards and there were over 5000 bottles in that part. It was interesting to go through a chateau, however the way they produce and make wine are much the same as in Australia.

We followed up our visit to the Medoc by having a picnic lunch by the river.  It was a magical day.

Mint, Horse, and Oysters

We headed off to the L'Apollo Bar for some Jazz but unfortunately missed the band. We still had a rollicking good time with their house DJ spinning some funky tunes accompanied by some random and awesome videos being projected onto the wall (I think one of them was the Nicholas brothers). The photo here is of the barmaid making several of their Mojitos which they prepare with the mint and sugar in the glass first and add the liquid as people order them. The large stack of highball glasses full of mint makes a nice sight on the bar.

We met a few lovely people from Spain and Argentina as we had a few more drinks and enjoyed the music but we were getting quite hungry so we headed off for some food. We were taken to one of the well kept secret of Bordeaux, a late night restaurant. This place opens at 10pm and closes around 4am and serves a variety of food, some regional. I tried to have the horse steak but they were out of the meat and I got something akin to just the meat out of a hamburger (although of much better quality than most) with an egg on top and some freshly cut handmade frites. Sancha took a plunge and tried the duck confit (a bold move for her) which she actually enjoyed. The chef was quite exuberant and seemed to enjoy making fun of our horrible French and our inability to understand him, but his food more than made up for the teasing.

We eventually headed off home and to bed at some point around 3am quite full and a little tipsy from the wine. I think the real winner from our meal was the restaurants dog who got a fair portion of the rare meat from inside my meal.

After a long sleep in the next day we headed back to the same market we got our picnicking food from and chowed down on some seafood. It was pretty fantastic and cheap, only 6€ for half a dozen large oysters and a glass of white wine. I was a little jealous of people getting the seafood platters which looked fantastic and contained prawns, oysters, sea snails and more. Thus fortified we were ready to face the day.

A 'Lille' Break

An unusual destination some might say for us to venture to, however the reason for our trip was out of curiosity really &; that a friend of mine is from these parts originally.

We found Lille to be a lovely city with a plethora of cafes/restaurants, boutique shops and few tourists.  There are quite a few beggars on the streets here as well.  They seem to be punks with lots of bored dogs that look ill-treated.  That side of things is a little sad.  There are also a lot of Museums, Parks and again beautiful architecture.  One of the museums we visited was the Musée des Beaux-Arts (the second largest fine arts museum in France after the Louvre).  We were even lucky enough to see an exhibition by Italian artist Paolo Finoglio.  It is the first time that 10 of his monumental paintings have been outside of Italy.  The Museum housed a lot of artwork but my favourites were: a room full of Rubens' paintings, a few Rodin sculptures, a room full of map reliefs and another room full of Delacroix andRomanticism paintings.

We have got to experience some luxuries as well in Lille - some things like having a hot bath and a sauna thanks to our swanky hotel on Rue de la Paris opposite the Opera House. And of course, you can't go to France without gorging yourself on fresh-made baguettes - we were delighted to find a Paul's across the road from where we are staying.

Our trip to Lille has also allowed us to explore Lille's parklands.  Our first day we walked around the city admiring the architecture and the beach volleyball event that was right outside the Museum of Fine Arts; and yesterday we explored Citadelle Parklands and free Zoo. Yes, that's right, a free day out, it was lovely. Pity the weather wasn't better (ie. full of sun).

Our first night here we found a pub called the "Australian Pub", it was just like a faux Irish pub though it had Fosters on tap.  Don't worry we didn't touch it, we opted for another tasty beverage from Belgium. It had great music - but unfortunately there was no Danni Minogue, Ian Moss, Darryl Braithwaite nor Savage Garden.

Tomorrow, we head to Bordeaux for some great company, wine and cheese.