La Grande Randonnée - Day 1 - Bordeaux and the Getting There

2008-09-16 Bordeaux

as threatened last blog, we did have to resort to Plan B - flying to Bordeaux. Fortunately Kensington-Victoria-Gatwick-Bordeaux Airport-Bordeaux St Jean was ridiculously easy. Unusually for BA, the steward was funny, friendly, and the food was edible - must have been an off day. The piccolo of lunchtime champagne on the flight was almost good enough to ease the sting of the fully flexible airfare (ouch).
Bordeaux knocks Bath  off its perch for beauty and charm, not to mention much better food. We also score another tick on the World Heritage list.
We arrived in Bordeaux about 17:00, and enjoyed a couple of hours strolling around the 18th century town before dark. We had dinner at a little cafe across from the hotel. As it was our first night in France we opted for the Perigordais specialities of foie gras and magret de canard. Little did we know how tired we would be of anything made from duck or goose by the end of the week.
We stayed at the Amarys Royal St Jean, which was right across from the train station, very pleasant and good value.
The next morning we discovered that SNCF does not approve of credit cards without chips, and punishes foreigners by making them queue to buy train tickets from a real person. Fortunately we decided to buy train tickets before lunch rather than after, so this was not in fact a disaster. Next stop - Bergerac.