EUROPE BLOG April 29th, 2023 - SAN SEBASTIAN to BORDEAUX

 

4/29/23- Nerves are hitting as we wait for our scheduled taxi to arrive. I’ve been assured that it was booked, but our bus leaves at 9:20am and I feel like I should have allowed more time just in case, due to the rain. Yet, right on time it shows up, much to our relief. Funny thing though is his side mirror is a camera with a monitor inside the car. Seems like a smart idea.

We board the bus on time and hunt for our seats 15A and 15B. We cruise the entire bus and see the numbers go to 14 then skip to 20 for the back row. We ask the driver for assistance and he can’t understand it either. After a few minutes of fumbling, he finally seats us in the first two seats, behind the driver seat, which works for us as more legroom.

There are 5 stops we go through on this 4 hour journey, but the last bit has some major traffic causing us to be late by 30 minutes. I message our AirBnb host about the update and all is good. Police also entered the bus once we cross over into France to check Passports, so that was interesting. Once we get to Bordeaux, France, I call an Uber (which I’m very happy they accept here) and we arrive around 2:30pm. 

 

Our host actually lives in the apartment but is going out of town today, so it does feel a bit weird to come into an already lived in place and not a hotel like setting. Our view from the balcony is also not the best. Sharece and her OCD goes right to work trying to clean up the place, and after about an hour of settling in we check out the city and what’s nearby.

The city is dirty, graffiti everywhere, musty smell and the cloudy weather is not helping matters. It takes us several blocks to get to old town where it feels so much better and more alive. There’s a church built into the entry way arch welcoming us into this land of, “Hmmm, okay, this ain’t bad”.

Upon entering, there’s scores of shopping and restaurants around and we grab a few slices of pizza to hold us over. This is where the rain begins. We quickly duck into a dry area to eat our slice and once done, Sharece opens her umbrella to find it broken. Luckily the rain is not much as our jackets shield most of it, and by the time we arrive at the Bordeaux Cathedral, it stops.

Dating back to the year 814, this French gothic cathedral is free to enter, aside from two people outside asking for donations, and upon entering it immediately reminds me of Notre Dame in Paris or Westminster Abbey in London.

We circle back toward old town to see inside the Grosse Cloche (the first church we passed), then go to Porte d’Aquitaine (which was mainly an arched monument with an obelisk and turtle statues), before grabbing a few items from the grocery store.

Today almost broke Sharece as her body is beginning to wear down. We are on our 5^th week and it’s been a trip for sure, but we are pushing through. Less than 2 weeks left for her. I’m almost half way through, so I have quite a bit more to see.

*Side note- I am trying to use the washer and that was a mistake. After it fills partly with water it immediately makes grinding noises as it tries to spin. Eventually it settles, but I have to hand rinse in the sink since they were all full of soap.