Bordeaux, France

We woke up early this morning and had breakfast in the Lido Café. Although there are some tours running this morning, the Café was fairly quiet. We then went over to the Fitness Center and did a portion of our daily workout. We plan to do the rest in the afternoon.

We took the first shuttle into the downtown area of Bordeaux. It was foggy and overcast as we waited for the shuttle to leave the terminal area. The shuttle traveled about twenty minutes from the port over to the area in which it dropped us off. The drive itself was not very scenic until we got to the outskirts of Bordeaux. That is when everything changed and we could quickly see the beauty and charm of this city.

Bordeaux looks like other cities in France with the beautiful architecture of its buildings. It is second to Paris as the country’s most densely populated city. Today, it is best known for it glorious chateaux, wonderful cuisine and all of the wines produced in this region. In fact, there are more than 3,000 wineries located in a relatively short proximity to Bordeaux.

Since today is Sunday all of the stores were closed which we had been told to expect ahead of time. However, this did not take away from the wonderful morning that we had walking around this lovely city.

After we got off the shuttle, we began to walk around town. We visited two churches; Cathedral of St. Andre and Notre Dame. The Cathedra of St. Andre is the largest Church in Bordeaux. The foundations of this church date back 900 years and some of the that we saw dated back to the 13th Century. Both of the churches were beautiful from the very detailed interiors to the exteriors of each building.

We walked on several streets through the middle of the city and went into various cafes and pastry shops. We even bought a couple of pastries to bring back to the ship to have after dinner this evening.

We also walked by the grand Theater, which is another beautiful building. The Grand Theater was built between 1773 and 1780. We visited an outdoor market and passed by other interesting areas of town. Throughout the city there are apartments directly above the lower level portions of the buildings that house stores, cafes and restaurants.

As the morning progressed the sun came out which just added to our joy of visiting this wonderful city. This is clearly a city that we would like to visit again, possibly for a couple of days while on a land vacation.

After we were through walking around Bordeaux we took the shuttle back to the ship where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the Main Dining Room.

Following lunch we finished our workout in the Fitness Center. Since the World Cruise began Anne Marie has gone about 450 miles on the treadmill and Keith has gone about 1,000 miles on the elliptical machine. These machines have certainly been put to good use by all of us who have used them throughout this wonderful voyage.

We also took time this afternoon to continue to get our packing done. Most of our fellow World Cruise passengers have been taking time the past few days to pack although there are a few who plan to wait until tomorrow, our last full day on the ship before we disembark the ship in Southampton, England.

This evening we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the Prego Italian Specialty Restaurant.

Tomorrow we will enjoy our last day at sea.

Keith & Anne Marie