City Review: Bordeaux, France

After spending a few days in Toulouse, we were back on the road for our next stop on our European road trip: Bordeaux, France. While researching and planning our trip, I had Googled: “Toulouse or Bordeaux?” The internet didn’t provide a consensus (it would be weird if it did), and since the two cities are less than three hours apart, we decided to visit both.

So here’s what it was like to visit Bordeaux, France.

About Bordeaux

Bordeaux is France’s sixth-largest city, with a population of just over 250,000 in the city proper. Located in southwestern France, Bordeaux is a port city, where the River Garonne reaches the Bay of Biscay. And of course, Bordeaux is known for being world-famous wine country! And that was pretty much all I knew about it. But knowing how much Matt and I love wine, I figured it was worth a visit.

Somehow, I failed to factor in the fact that it would be January when we visited? So the visions of pretty green vineyards and rolling hills in the French countryside that danced in my head were nothing more than a fantasy. Truthfully, it was cold and rained every. single. day. that we were in Bordeaux. Most of our time was spent ducking under a single shared umbrella, walking across the famous Pont de Pierre bridge from our Airbnb across the river, and trying to stay warm despite being wet all the time.

The architecture in Bordeaux was certainly much different from what we’d seen in Toulouse. While in Toulouse, everything was made of warm pink brick, Bordeaux’s unvarying limestone and Gothic structures reminded me more of cities I’d seen in Germany or Eastern Europe. That definitely gave the city a harsher, colder feel than in sunny, pink Toulouse — though of course, the weather sure didn’t help with that. 🙂 But Bordeaux did feel like stepping back in time to a medieval city, especially in the old town, so that was pretty cool.

How Many Days Do You Need in Bordeaux?

In the winter, two days would probably be plenty to see most of what you need to see in Bordeaux. It’s an easily walkable city, and there’s also a tram line you can use to get around.

If you want to visit some wineries — which I highly recommend if you visit at the right time of year — three days would probably be better. That way, you can spend a day at the wineries and two days in the city. The best times to visit vineyards in Bordeaux are between March and November, but be sure to do some research of your own when planning specific excursions.

Things to Do in Bordeaux

If you’re lucky enough to be in Bordeaux during not-January, I think a vineyard or winery visit would be a lot of fun! Here are a few ideas:

• St Emilion Day Trip with Sightseeing Tour & Wine Tastings from Bordeaux
• Castel Wine Tour in Bordeaux Margaux
• Medoc Region Wine Day Trip with Vineyard Visits & Tastings from Bordeaux
• Make Your Own Cuvée of Bordeaux Wine

Ok, all of those things look really fun and I’m actually kind of upset we didn’t get to do any of those?? I think we need to go back sometime when it’s not winter and when half the best stuff about Bordeaux isn’t shut down/under construction, because I think it’s probably a really gorgeous city, especially in the summer.

One of the major things you’ll want to see in Bordeaux is the iconic Place de la Bourse (which is the photo at the top of this article.) It’s actually a lot more symmetrical than it looks in that picture, because the other half of it was under construction and it wasn’t that nice to look at, so I cropped it out. In front of it, you’ll find a reflecting pool called Miroir d’eau, or “Water Mirror,” which claims to be the largest reflecting pool in the world! But guess what… it was drained when we were there. So we didn’t get to see it… but we did get to walk where it would have normally been?

The Bordeaux Cathedral is another iconic site, with its steeple rising far above the skyline. I don’t think we actually visited it — it wasn’t particularly close to where we were, and we didn’t feel like venturing out in the rain to see it — but it does seem to be pretty to look at! That’s just another example of the Gothic architecture you’ll find in Bordeaux.

Other quintessential Gothic structures in Bordeaux are the Grosse Cloche and the Porte Cailhau. Both of these are former gates to the city, which used to be entirely surrounded by walls, back before the 18th century. Apparently you can go inside the Grosse Cloche for €5, but we just walked under it and admired it from the outside.

Not far from the Grosse Cloche is the Pont de Pierre, which I mentioned that we spent a lot of time walking across. That’s because our Airbnb was on the other side of the River Garonne, and to get to the old Bordeaux city, we had to cross the bridge. Despite the rain, the bridge was gorgeous with ornate lampposts and a great view from both sides.

And even if you’re staying in the old city, there’s one great reason you may want to cross the river: Darwin. Darwin is described as an “alternative and inspiring urban ecosystem.” Since it wasn’t far from our place, we checked it out on our last day, on our way out of town. And I’m so glad we did! It was actually one of the coolest things we saw in Bordeaux.

At Darwin, former military barracks have been renovated and repurposed into an ecosystem that promotes “collaboration, sustainable development and creativity.” It’s really hard to describe, but I’ll tell you what they have there: a bakery, a fair-trade chocolatier, the largest organic shop/restaurant in all of France, a coffee shop, a co-working space, a massive skate park, a vintage resale store, and more. Not everything was open while we were visiting, but we could have easily spent hours wandering through all it had to offer. You can’t miss it!

How Expensive is Bordeaux?

Similar to what we experienced in Toulouse, Bordeaux was more expensive than Spain by a few euros per item when it came to food. Like wine would be about €4-5 instead of €2, and we drink a lot of wine.

If you’re not used to traveling in Spain as much as we are, you probably won’t find Bordeaux too expensive, honestly. I’d say most menu items were about €12-18 euros per person for dinner, and maybe a bit less for lunch. With the U.S. dollar not far off from the euro at this moment, that’s really not bad. A jug of (great-tasting) tap water was usually included, which was appreciated. And with dessert between €5-10, which we pretty much always wanted, dinner for two usually turned out to be about €40-60 depending on wine and/or dessert. Don’t forget — tax is included and you don’t have to tip!

Of course, you can always find cheaper places that serve street food or kebab (which we definitely ate at least one night) when you don’t care about sitting down or having a fancy French meal. That would be more like €6-12 per person.

Where We Stayed

Throughout the rest of this trip, we stayed in hotels that we booked using a combination of points and money, thanks to our Chase Sapphire Preferred credit cards. But this was just about the mid-point of our road trip, and we knew we’d need to do laundry… so we booked an Airbnb.

The Airbnb was on the right bank of Bordeaux, as I mentioned, but it was only about a 15-minute walk to the old town across the bridge. The apartment was a little guest house nestled behind a fairly regular-looking street façade, but it was cozy and cute. One of the best parts was that our host paid for street parking for us for the duration of our visit. Considering how much we’d been paying for parking on our trip, I consider him to be a literal angel.

Final Thoughts

While we clearly didn’t visit Bordeaux at the right time of year, I can see its potential and can understand how it probably sparkles in the summer. I’ll for sure give it another chance someday… as long as there’s no rain in the forecast. 😂

 

What do you think? Are you planning to visit Bordeaux, or have you been there before? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

This site contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you.

Originally Published on March 28, 2023.