12.31.2017 New Years Eve in Bordeaux — Goodbye 2017; Hello 2018
31 December 2017. En ce dernier jour de cette année folle. In this last day of this crazy year.
Last night’s dinner at L’Estacade was fine – very relaxed, low key… L’Estacade sits out on the Rive Garrone across from the side of the river we are staying at… It’s on stilts and feels like a dock restaurant. We had oysters, salads, a penne pasta with fish and a small appetizer of sweetbreads on polenta. All good. It was a long hike back, so we opted for a taxi. After this morning’s breakfast at Yndo, we headed to return the rental car (should have done it last night!) and that is always fun… (not). The GPS kept taking us to the front of the train station and we knew we needed to be behind the station to get to the parking area (6th floor). Getting around the building was no easy thing. Took about 10 tries, but finally got the car up to the 6th floor of the garage and dropped off the keys. Then we headed to the tram to get to La Bourse where we would walk the two or so miles along the quai to the Cite du Vin (a wine museum). Tram was fairly straightforward – they seem to have a very comprehensive system — very frequent stops, totally silent, no overhead wires, clean, easy to purchase tickets at each stop (although no one ever checks). Getting off at La Bourse we were able to do what I suppose every tourist does: take photos at the reflecting pool directly across from La Bourse….
We then walked along the river, past the amazingly complicated city-constructed skateboard parks – one for older kids, another for little ones… and through a great outdoor market that was sort of a combination of any great farmers’ market and Oakland’s Off the Grid Food Trucks on Friday nights at the museum.
It was such a wonderful blue sky day that we reluctantly left our umbrellas (hotel umbrellas) back in the room. I, more than Mike, was convinced that the weather would hold out on this my birthday!
As we walked, we thought about stopping in one of the many restaurants along the quai… but decided to hold out until we hit the Cite du Vin – Bordeaux’s very new (opened mid-2016) and very creative homage to the international wine industry. Quite cleverly they have set it up to make Bordeaux the world capital of wine by ensuring that exhibits include all wine-producing nations and they even serve many, many non-French wines throughout the building. It sits on the banks of the Garrone River. The building was designed by a team of French architects – personally I think the exterior is a stupid looking shape, but it is definitely iconic. The architects’ comments about the design: “This building does not resemble any recognizable shape because it is an evocation of the soul of wine between the river and the city…. Every detail of the architecture evokes wine’s soul and liquid nature: ‘seamless roundness, intangible and sensual’” (Mike’s comment on this quote is even stronger than mine – “Barff”)… Their comments are sort of antithetical to the way the exhibits are handled and how the museum tries to ensure that wine is for all people.. not just those who can figure out what ‘seamless roundness” means.
Anyway, it was a good move to wait to eat until we got to the wine museum; they have a wonderful restaurant, Le 7, on the 7th floor with commanding views of the river and the northern part of the city. And the food was great. We shared (given that tonight is probably a big meal) – raw and smoked beef appetizer served with “mustard ice cream” (it actually had the texture of gelato and was cold like ice cream, but a delicate mustard taste).. main course of wonderful sweetbreads with chanterelles, tiny crispy greens, and paper thin carrots in a delightful and understated sauce. We ended with rum baba – totally soaked in a good rum!. Then we headed to see the exhibits.
The real draw has got to be the creative efforts made to ensure that understanding wine is not elitist, not boring, and not just for adults. As you enter the building you get an iPhone like device and headphones (every language imaginable – and even one for kids with cartoons explaining everything along the way). But you don’t even need the headphones or the translations as the exhibits — all very interactive – are large and interesting, and often lots of fun. In one room you can sit at a dinner table with both real and projected people. The projected people are having conversations (about wine and food) and everything is projected onto the table.. food courses which keep changing, your silverware, etc. The projected person pours wine into a two dimensional glass at your table and it’s as real as it can be complete with the video guy cleaning off the bottle. The museum founders must have (smartly) consulted with not just historians and oenologists, and scientists, but also with professional popularizers… and set designers.. I think that the museum director came from running a sophisticated theme park. In any case, I’d say – good move!.
All good until we attempted to leave the museum —- what about those umbrellas? It was pouring… winds and squall-like conditions… Dashed back into the gift shop and we are now the proud owners of two Cite du Vin umbrellas (to add to the collection of many other umbrellas purchased in similar circumstances). We waited a while and then braved the few blocks to the tram station… (never even bought tickets) and went the five stops toward the hotel and then walked the ½ mile back to Yndo. Apparently we needed to order a taxi to our restaurant for tonight, by early this morning because it’s such a busy night. We didn’t do that, so Yndo drove us to dinner.
This is now being written on January 1…. We spent a rainy new year’s eve at La Tupina – a small, delightful Bordeaux restaurant just off the quai. The restaurant is on the first floor of a somewhat non-descript mid-18th Century building. It was actually a perfect place for us. Food was good but not over the top, no decorations for New Year’s and no funny hats or horns. I truly hate that stuff, and since New Year’s is my birthday, I naturally think it should be more about me than about the hoopla surrounding the change of the year. That said, we are always traveling on New Year’s and have had New Year’s dinners in about 25 or 30 different countries. Somehow, they all get into that hat and noise-maker thing. And generally, even the best restaurants have set menus which are not as good as their non-holiday pre-set dinners. La Tupina was a pleasant surprise, although as is standard on New Year’s, it was a set meal.
OK.. for the foodies .. Others, move on to the next paragraph! We arrived at about 9:15 and the pace was leisurely… starting with a glass of champagne accompanied by a wonderful tiny, but thick pancake-like croque with truffles, cream, and a scallop. This was followed by a blini with paper-thin beets, cream and caviar, wrapped with smoked salmon. Of course by then we were up to wine (from Bordeaux, naturally!; we liked the fact that La Tupina doesn’t even bother having wines from anywhere else… just Bordeaux). The next course – naturally – foie gras sitting in a foam of chestnut emulsion. We both selected the meat dish for the main course, since we’ve had so much fish I think I’m developing gills… The meat dish was venison with truffles, baked pear, and a potato (shaped like the pear – perhaps to create visual balance on the plate?) that was whipped but crusty with a finely ground nut covering… And before we rolled out and figured we had gained several pounds (good thing we are walking a lot), we had a very hard-to-describe, but quite luscious, dessert – some kind of ice cream that was dipped in a marshmallow-ish liquid which was then carefully burned to create a crust around the ice cream which was then placed atop a baked pear with raspberries on the edge.
We literally rolled out of the restaurant at about 12:40 am (again, no fanfare at midnight, just food!) and it was impossible to get a taxi back to the hotel. It was only drizzling at that point so we decided to take the tram and then walk from the tram stop to the hotel. We were pretty seasoned commuters by then. The streets of Bordeaux were filled with young people dancing in the rain and singing French songs that we assume were pretty current. They all seemed to know the words. We joined a group of twenty-somethings on the train and they were all singing as well. Seems to be some kind of tradition to wear costumes so some kids were dressed as cows and other animals… all on our tram. As one group got off at a station, another joined in and the singing continued.. and some dancing. Seems like it’s good to be twenty-something in Bordeaux.
We left the tram at Quinconces and walked back to Yndo in the on and off again drizzle. It was a good dinner and a good New Years and a good birthday. Thank you all for your warm wishes.
All the best to you for the New Year… Have a wonderful New Year’s Eve. We are toasting you!
Fern
Fern's Travel Notes 