While we’ve seen a bit of the area, we have yet to go into the city of Bordeaux. We hope to explore it today.

Everyone enjoys a big breakfast. I think we are all appreciating the big grocery shopping trip yesterday. We then drive the 45 minutes into Bordeaux. It’s not far, but there doesn’t seem to be a direct route. In fact, the only road linking our town to the main road going into Bordeaux is a small, poorly patched-up road through the woods. It’s cute, but odd.

Bordeaux seems largely boarded up. It is Sunday after all. But thankfully the waterfront is buzzing with activity. The first thing we see if a playground, so we know we’ll be hitting that up later. We park and walk along the water to an incredible farmer’s market. There are stands selling oysters that people are enjoying right there. Then we see boulangeries with amazing treats including macarons. Butchers, fish, bread, jam, wine, beer, rotisserie, cheese…everything you could imagine. We sit and have crepes (for the kids) and rotisserie chicken and duck (Stefan shared a little). The weather is perfect today, so sitting outside is really nice.

Lillian needs to use the bathroom, so she and I walk down to the public restroom. We wait in a ridiculous line to use a single public toilet. It’s disgusting, of course. So I tell her she really can’t sit down, which she always does. I attempt to hold her up over the toilet. Next thing I know I am covered in pee. All down both legs. So gross. How does she pee horizontally?! Anyway, I douse my pants in water and try not to think about it. I mean, what else can you do?!

Next stop: the playground. The kids are so excited, but after ten minutes they are a bit bored. I don’t understand it since they can spend endless hours on a couple pieces of equipment elsewhere.

We walk north along the water toward the new Cite du Vins, a wine museum open just one month. The building is very unusual, so it’s easy to spot and walk in that direction. The walk along the water is very nice, and all the restaurants and shops there are open. As we approach the Museum, we see the beginning of a graffiti festival, Shake Well. We detour to check it out. An entire block in this industrial part of town is being covered in graffiti. The styles differ among artists, and it’s cool to get to see them actually doing it in front of us.

Then we find this area with live reggae music, an area where they are letting young people (kids older than ours) try out some spray painting and another area where they let little kids decorate their own cupcakes. The assisting chef kept telling my kids, “oh you can put as much candy as you want on it!” And they did. And they ate all of it.

So all hyped up on sugar, we finally go to the Cite du Vins. I understand this museum is new and innovative, but 20 euros/person is a lot! Note that kids 6 years and up also have to pay. We barely skirted that. It’s a fantastic building. Oly even exclaimed, “yay, we get to go inside it!” It’s pretty cool. The exhibit is large and completely interactive. While this may be really interesting for older kids, it was a bit lost on my 2 year old. I wish we’d figured out a different way to do this, perhaps with him napping in the stroller (which he rarely does now), because it was hard to enjoy the museum with Oly. He was miserable.

On a good note, the museum has winemakers from around the world talking about their craft. And there’s a lot of information on the smell and color of wine. Both kids actually enjoy going around and smelling the different sample smells they have set up, but they are too tall for my kids, so we have to hold them up to each one. There are a lot of videos. There’s information on the history of wine. I am very interested in this portion, and I didn’t get a lot of out of it. I don’t know if it was because I am distracted with the kids or because they chose to present it in an incongruous way. Overall I wish I got more out of this visit.

Our ticket allows us up to the Belvedere (i didn’t know this word before, but it’s a lookout of sorts). The elevator opens on a floor with complete 360 degree floor to ceiling windows. It’s a beautiful space. Mind you we are just on the 8th floor, but nothing in Bordeaux is very tall so this provides some nice views. We enjoy a complimentary glass of wine of our choice. Stefan has a rose and I have a red, both from this region. They are fantastic. We continue to be blown away by the wine here. The kids like going outside on the enclosed balcony here, but it makes me a little nervous.

We realize we are exhausted. All four of us. So we make our way back to the car and drive home. It feels good to get in the house. This place is super comfortable and clean, which makes for the perfect welcome after a long day. I make some pasta and salad. And a cheese plate. We also take time to enjoy some Rose on the patio and play cards for a few minutes. The chef at the graffiti festival gave us this new food card game. The instructions are in French, so we made up a couple different games you can play with the cards. None of them are amazing, but it doesn’t matter. Lillian and Oly love it.