Bordeaux, Bayonne & Biarritz – France

We spent a week in the Bordeaux area and a day in the Bayonne / Biarritz area. I was looking forward to returning to Bordeaux as I really liked it the last time I was there. And, I’ve always wanted to visit Biarritz since friends in high school used to holiday there.

Blaye

We stayed in the little village of Berson northwest of the city of Bordeaux and near the coastal town of Blaye. Blaye had a really cool 17th-century citadel which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It is located on the water river inlet to protect the city of Bordeaux. It is actually one of 3 forts blotted across the river. Inside the citadel was a small village with accommodation, restaurants, etc. It was off-season when we were there so most of these were closed. But, the citadel was huge and the views were superb.

Unfortunately, the rest of the town of Blaye really isn’t worth visiting… However, we drove about 5 minutes south down the road to visit a Roman villa. This was the largest Roman villa I’ve ever seen – it was enormous and was occupied for several hundred years. It still had some impressive mosaic floors and a very old church next door.

St. Emilion

No trip to the Bordeaux area is complete without a visit to the lovely town of St. Emilion. This ancient town is surrounded by vineyards. The cathedral here is very old and is a famous pilgrimage stop for pilgrims doing the Camino de Santiago (more about this in a future post). The town has two levels – the upper and lower and is full of shops (mostly selling wine and wine tastings).

Bordeaux

We spent a day wandering around the streets of Bordeaux and visiting the various churches and the cathedral. Both the cathedral and churches in this city are stunning and are also important stops along the Camino de Santiago. Bordeaux has a few beautiful city gates and tons of restaurants, cafes, bars and shopping. In fact, the main shopping street seems to go on and on and on…

Arcachon and the Dune of Pilat

After our week in the Bordeaux area, we headed south to Bayonne. On the way, we stopped to see the resort town of Arcachon and climb the largest sand dune in Europe – the Dune of Pilat (the photos below don’t do it justice to show just how big and tall it is…)

Bayonne

We stayed in the beach resort town of Ondres (last photo above) just north of Bayonne. Unfortunately, we could only stay 2 nights in this area so we only had one full day to visit both Bayonne and Biarritz. Bayonne was a nice old town on a river which had a very impressive cathedral (also on the Camino de Santiago) and a castle.

Biarritz

I have always wanted to visit Biarritz since I had heard about how great it was from high school friends. And it was – a beautiful seaside resort town, and it reminded me a lot of Australia. We walked through the town (tasting some of the local smoked meat specialties), along the coast and out to the monument to the Virgin Mary out on an island.

Next stop Spain. We’ll be following the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage path on our way to Vigo.