Another amazing day in France. I know that I keep saying that but the wonderful experiences just keep on coming.
This morning we walked across to the other side of the river to the main city of Bordeaux to revisit some of the things we had seen on tour yesterday and to do a spot of shopping. C & A hadn't come shopping after the tour yesterday and Chris has set herself the very important task of buying a fridge magnet at every town that we stay in, so we had to find one for Bordeaux at the very least.
A super cool thing in Bordeaux is something called the mirror fountain. Really, it is just a flat surface across the road from one of the amazing Bordeaux plazas that is first sprayed and then filled (2 its depth of a couple of inches) with water. The effect has 3 stages; the first is that the spray is blown about by the wind and looks like mist rising from the pavement, the second is that it looks like a filled pool so when you walk through it you look like you are walking on water and the third is when the water is drained away just leaving wet tiles which reflect the cityscape like a mirror. Simple but brilliant! Gorgeous, fun and ingenious all at the same time!
After we had played with photos at the mirror fountain T & T went on revisiting the old town and things we had seen yesterday, while Brett and I took C & A into the centre to show them where the main shopping street was - and to show them the extraordinary chocolatier. We left them to do their own shopping and mosied on to shops we hadn't already and I found a gorgeous pair of shoes and on sale too! My first pair of French shoes, how lovely.
After meeting back at the hotel we found that thanks to Tony the wonder packer we managed to fit all of our luggage in the van and still have space for all of us - phew! Off we went to the next stop on our tour, and a pretty special stop at that this, today we sampled Hennessey cognac...the good stuff...at the Hennessey distillery... in Cognac. Oh yeah baby, it was pretty jolly fabulous. Al thought it was so good that when we were in the barrel room with the stuff that was barrelled in the 1800s, he interupted the tour to give the tour guide his card and an offer to be available by phone if the current cellar-master doesn't work out. Thankfully she found it amusing - not least because the Hennessey cellarmaster has come from the same family for the last 7 generations so we don't think she was tempted to present him as an option for the next one.
We didn't stop in Coulon as planned, due both to the difficulty of getting there and because we had spent more time in Bordeau and Cognac than expected. Instead we came straight through to Les Sables d'Olonne. Our hotel is a little naff, but it is right on the beachfront which is lovely. This will be an ideal spot to blob out for a day I think. I guess we'll see...
