On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - Page 7 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Glad you made it to the gas station in time. I hate getting low on gas and not knowing where the next gas staation is. Your pictures are beautiful and I always learn so much from your trips.
Liz
34 British cars in just that one distance, or was that all day long thus far? Wow, that does sure seem like a lot! Beautiful photos of the countryside. And who knew there'd be so many large bridges in that town? Very neat!!!!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
34 British cars in just that one distance, or was that all day long thus far? Wow, that does sure seem like a lot! Beautiful photos of the countryside. And who knew there'd be so many large bridges in that town? Very neat!!!!
Saturday 4 September – part eight: oh wow, what a room!
We pulled up and checked in, getting all the details about the place. I loved the decoration inside, very contemporary: (these photos were taken a little later in the evening, hence no luggage in these photos! )
We rescued all the luggage from the cart, using a luggage cart that bell services had provided for us. The guy saw us with the cart and came to help us, so I set off with him to the room, while Mark went to park the car in the secure lot next to the hotel.
Our room was on the second floor and again, the decoration here was lovely.
The guy helped me with the luggage and put it all down for me, while I admired the room. If last night’s room had been tiny with barely room for anything, this was the complete opposite. So much space! I immediately loved this place for two main reasons, outside of all the space here, the dressing gowns and the walk-in shower. Oh my goodness, two nights here would be heaven!
The view from our room:
We spent a bit of time in the room, before realising that we ought to head down to the car to rescue some bits we’d left behind by accident. We got out on the second floor, so that we could see where breakfast would be served in the morning and were surprised to find this there:
The thinker?
On the way out, we saw a bride and groom in the lobby. As usual, with my French, I could only remember the French for “congratulations” after the moment was past.
On the way back in from the car, we stopped to look at some of the information in the lobby, as there were leaflets, magazines and books about Bordeaux. In this area were also two computers, with free Internet access. It was interesting to see that they keep your details on record for a year of the sites you accessed, which I thought was good. Something else that was good was the fact that when I tried to log into Facebook, because it didn’t recognise the computer as one I’d used before, I had to go through security checks, which involved me having to identify friends from photos, which was no problem, but it’s good to know Facebook does that.
I checked my e-mails, posted an update on Facebook and then we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had decided to go to the hotel restaurant for dinner, as we were just too tired to do much else. I was glad we got a bit dressed up, as this was definitely a signature experience – with prices to match.
The terrace outside, as seen from our table
They even had a video, showing what was going in the kitchen! [/b]
We started off with an amuse bouchee, which was divine, with guacamole topped with salmon mousse. That could easily have been a full appetiser for me, I enjoyed it so much.
We both went for the menu of the day, with me opting for the goat’s cheese and marinated beetroot for starter, while Mark went for the terrine. I couldn’t fault mine, the flavours went together absolutely beautiful. I could have easily eaten this for main course as well, it was that good.
For main course, Mark had the chicken with spaghetti sauce and I went for the tuna with polenta and tomatoes, although without the bacon that it was supposed to come with. While mine was fine, it certainly was nowhere near as mind blowing as the appetiser had been.
With the menu of the day, we each got a glass of wine, both of course from the Bordeaux region. I went for the rose, as I was intrigued to try Bordeaux rose and Mark went for the white. Let’s just say that I think they were probably both on the cheaper side of the local wines, and while both were Ok, they were nothing special and we certainly wouldn’t be rushing out to get the bottle.
In total, the meal, with a bottle of water, came to €51 ($66), much better than it would’ve been if we’d have gone for the a la carte menu. All I’m saying is that one of the starters was caviar, reduced from €110 to €97.
We headed back to our room, with Mark I think feeling he’d had a great birthday, despite all the driving.
Today we drove 503 miles. The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the low 80s. The best thing today was Chateau de Villandry. The worst thing today was the drive around the outskirts of Paris. Today we tried driving from Arras to Bordeaux And the result was it was a very long drive and I’m glad we broke it out with a visit to the Chateau on the way. The most magical moment today was seeing the walk-in shower in our room.
Great update and it looks like a wonderful meal as well. (I was wondering as I looked at the picture if they asked what temperature you wanted your Tuna? I like mine almost swimming!) The photo of Mark and the chessboard is fabulous--whimsy and contempo all at the same time!
I hope Mark isn't trying to count cows and drive at the same time!
Here we go again with the mix of old and new! The beautiful old, historic villages with the sleek and contemporary hotels and new buildings. Your room does seem to be very relaxing, I'm glad you got to enjoy it for 2 days! What a nice birthday dinner too.
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Tanya
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I dedicated my afternoon to catching up on your TR, (got to love when the boss leaves for traveling ). The trip sounds amazing so far. I could not get over how small your room at Arras was. The pictures are amazing, as they always are. I always feel like I am coming along for the ride when I read your TR's. Loved your room in Bordeaux, much more room there and I love the colors.
Sunday 5 September – part one: what do you mean, it’s car free day?
We had a fairly lazy start to the day, surfacing just before 8am this morning. I was quickly up, as I wanted to grab a shower (love that walk-in shower! ) and wash my hair. I figured today would be a good day to do that, as my hair takes a while to dry and I like to let it dry naturally and we weren’t in any tearing hurry this morning.
We eventually ambled downstairs for breakfast, which was exceptionally good. They had smoked salmon, cold meats, a proper cheeseboard (although sadly the cheeses on it weren’t that inspiring ), cereals, pastries, scrambled egg, bacon, sausages, toast, fresh fruit and even pancakes with jam and syrup. We both completely pigged out on the selection and there were even bits I didn’t see until we were leaving, such as the fridge filled with yoghurts.
After we finished our breakfast, we wandered out to have a look at the outside swimming pool beyond it, which was very nice, complete with views over the lake outside. It was a shame we didn’t have a room on the other side of the hotel, as then we’d probably have a lovely view of the lake. Still, our room was very nice, all the same.
The lake was our first stop when we eventually headed out, where we stopped to get a couple of photos of it. It’s a very peaceful place.
Our hotel
From there, we headed into Bordeaux itself. We quickly found ourselves on the road that runs parallel to the river and very quickly we started to see why this place has the biggest World Heritage Site area ever declared in the world. I had read about this last night in one of the brochures we’d picked up in the lobby. It’s down to the literally hundreds of beautiful buildings dating back a couple of hundred years and you start to see them at an early point.
Slightly freakily, we also saw a huge cruise ship moored up in the river, which is a sight I wasn’t expecting here. :
Just to give you some quick history of the city: Bordeaux has been a major port since before Roman times and it was built on a curve of the River Garonne. Much of the work that can be seen today took place in the 18th century, with a selection of grand boulevards and Neo-Classical squares constructed.
We quickly found our way to the centre of Bordeaux, but immediately ran into a problem. The roads we wanted to take were all blocked off. I spotted some signs about Bordeaux being car free on a Sunday, so it soon became clear that pretty much all of the city centre was cordoned off. It later turned out, as we were told on our guided tour in the afternoon that it’s actually the first Sunday of every month that’s declared car free day in the city.
As a result, we kept driving, assuming we’d be able to turn round, but : we couldn’t. We then turned off, assuming we’d easily be able to backtrack and get back to the road by the river. Well, that was a heck of a lot easier said than done. We tried all sorts of routes and, even with me map reading and help from Tim, it probably took us about 20 minutes to get back there. Every road we needed to go down was either closed off, had a tramline on it (which obviously Tim didn’t know about ) or was a no-entry. Let’s just say I think we were both very glad to finally get back to that road. In fairness, we did see some lovely sights of the city on our magical mystery tour around.
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I immediately loved this place for two main reasons, outside of all the space here, the dressing gowns and the walk-in shower. Oh my goodness, two nights here would be heaven! 
Glad you had a great dinner, and that Mark had a great birthday! 
Holly: 
), cereals, pastries, scrambled egg, bacon, sausages, toast, fresh fruit and even pancakes with jam and syrup. We both completely pigged out on the selection and there were even bits I didn’t see until we were leaving, such as the fridge filled with yoghurts. 
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