Bordeaux...
The wine capital of France Bordeaux definitely lives up to its name.
Went to Bordeaux last saturday and is its beautiful or what? For the past few years, the French government has been trying to protect the architectural beauty of the major cities of France, from the steadily growing pollution. Bordeaux being the wine hub gets a priority in that aspect. The main street of Bordeaux is in the central market place which has the oldest opera house of France. All the buildings there have been cleaned by a special process so as to give them the look they had a few decades back. The result, architectural beauty at its best.
Tram lines are the backbone of the local transportation system in Bordeaux, but having a tram line means to have wires above all the streets of the city which ends up spoiling the view. To avoid this, they have adopted a new technology in which the electricity supply for the tram is underneath the train. I don't know if its very common outside France but I have seen the Tram lines in another city in France where they have overhead cables and it makes a siginificant difference in the looks of the city.
There is a small town called St.Emmilion around 30 Kms from Bordeaux where the biggest wine storage caves are located. Its considered to be one of the richest small towns in France, for obvious reasons. Throughout the drive from Bordeaux to St.Emmilion all i saw as far as i could on both sides of the road were..... vineyards. Its not the right season to visit since the plants are really small at this time of the year so all you can see there is that, France can support the wine requirements of other planets also. I took a tour of one of the biggest wine caves( storing more than 500 000 bottles of wine). Saw a few of the most exquisite wine shops. One of the shops had a small gallery where they explain the process of making and tasting wine. There were some really old wines which were more than 350 € for a bottle and I just couldn't get myself to belive that there are people in this world ready to spend that much on..... a bottle of wine.
End of the evening I was headed home. Me being a person who doesn't like wine had had much more information about it than i needed. I don't think it'll motivate me enough to start having wine but I'll never mind taking it up as a business ;-)
Went to Bordeaux last saturday and is its beautiful or what? For the past few years, the French government has been trying to protect the architectural beauty of the major cities of France, from the steadily growing pollution. Bordeaux being the wine hub gets a priority in that aspect. The main street of Bordeaux is in the central market place which has the oldest opera house of France. All the buildings there have been cleaned by a special process so as to give them the look they had a few decades back. The result, architectural beauty at its best.
Tram lines are the backbone of the local transportation system in Bordeaux, but having a tram line means to have wires above all the streets of the city which ends up spoiling the view. To avoid this, they have adopted a new technology in which the electricity supply for the tram is underneath the train. I don't know if its very common outside France but I have seen the Tram lines in another city in France where they have overhead cables and it makes a siginificant difference in the looks of the city.
There is a small town called St.Emmilion around 30 Kms from Bordeaux where the biggest wine storage caves are located. Its considered to be one of the richest small towns in France, for obvious reasons. Throughout the drive from Bordeaux to St.Emmilion all i saw as far as i could on both sides of the road were..... vineyards. Its not the right season to visit since the plants are really small at this time of the year so all you can see there is that, France can support the wine requirements of other planets also. I took a tour of one of the biggest wine caves( storing more than 500 000 bottles of wine). Saw a few of the most exquisite wine shops. One of the shops had a small gallery where they explain the process of making and tasting wine. There were some really old wines which were more than 350 € for a bottle and I just couldn't get myself to belive that there are people in this world ready to spend that much on..... a bottle of wine.
End of the evening I was headed home. Me being a person who doesn't like wine had had much more information about it than i needed. I don't think it'll motivate me enough to start having wine but I'll never mind taking it up as a business ;-)