La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

[VPS]

La Garonne

We decided to take a cruise on the river at Bordeaux: La Garonne. The price included a canelé and a glass of wine. I can't say that I am a fan of the canelés; a bit too stodgy for my taste but the wine was fine.

La Garonne is not a particularly beautiful river as it passes through Bordeaux but it was an interesting cruise nonetheless. Our boat:

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The original bridge; still in use:

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This one is a vertical-lift bridge: the Pont Jacques Chaban-Delmas. At 575m long and 77m high it is both the longest and highest vertical-lift bridge in Europe.

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Around 20-odd years ago there were, from memory, 17 decaying warehouses along the waterfront in Bordeaux. Seven of these have been restored and now house restaurants, bars and the like, with car parking on the rooves. The other 10 were demolished to reunite Bordeaux with its river. From what we saw it has been a very successful project.

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I was quite impressed with Bordeaux - when we were there a few years ago they had reinstalled the tram system and I enjoyed the city. The light show near the harbour was great. Agree about the canele but we got one free on a bus tour

 

[Jacques Vert]

It was then time to hand back our car and get ready to leave France. We booked a couple of nights at the B&B Hotel Mérignac Cadera. There are three B&B hotels near the airport and we originally went to the wrong one. The one we booked had until recently been an Ibis and as a new hotel to the B&B chain it had a special rate of EUR50 per night. It's very basic, even for an Ibis, but has the advantage of a tram stop just 50 metres away from where it's only two stops to the airport or about 40 minutes into the CBD.

This gave us the opportunity to clean the car (part of the T&Cs) and hand it back on time, plus re-pack and get ready for our flight without any stress.

 

[FlyingFiona]

No, you can't leave. I'm not ready to stop reading about France!

Thank you so much for all the time you've spent to bring us along with you. It's been really wonderful.

 

[Jacques Vert]

No, you can't leave. I'm not ready to stop reading about France!

Thank you so much for all the time you've spent to bring us along with you. It's been really wonderful.

Well unfortunately we have to leave; reward flights booked and we have things to do back in Aus. Plus we have a new grandson that we haven't met yet.

Ready to head to the airport and it's raining heavily so we decided to order a Bolt (similar to Uber). The guy turns up, takes a look at our luggage (we have accumulated quite a bit during our travels) and decides he doesn't want to take anything that won't fit into the boot so he cancels the ride. Fortunately we got a break in the weather so we dragged our bags to the tram stop and around 10 minutes later we arrived at the airport.

Straying off-topic for a moment, it never ceases to amaze me why Melbourne has not extended a tram line to MEL. Lots of cities in Europe have trams to their airports including BOD, LYS and ZRH, to name just a few. Put in a train if you wish, but they could have easily had a tram connection 30+ years ago. But I digress...

Arriving at the terminal we notice there is a garden of grapevines; of course there is!




Back at the biginning of this TR, I mentioned that we were originally planning to do this trip in 2023 before some unanticipated medical issues forced us to cancel our reward flights and rebook for July 2024. We were fortunate enough to have SQ extend the validity of our ticket to allow us to rebook on points that would have otherwise expired. The only negative with this was that we were now required to leave France in or before December (due to Visa and tax residency issues). Anyone who frequents this site would be aware of how difficult it is to find Award seats in December. There was nothing available in J into Australia for all of December using QF points but I did find 2 x J savers from IST to MEL with SQ on 27/12. So how to get from France to IST?

Royal Air Maroc fly from Bordeaux to Casablanca, and from Casablanca to Istanbul, and generally have good award availability. As I've always wanted to visit Morocco we decided that this would be the way home.

Check-in was a dream thanks to a great check-in agent who obviously enjoys his job, then off to the lounge...




The lounge was quite small but there was only one other person there; we basically had the place to ourselves:




Food options were limited but adequate enough for a pre-lunch departure...






The important stuff was freely available although perhaps a little early for the tawny...

 

[Jacques Vert]

AT793 BOD-CMN

Our two and a quarter hour flight is on a Royal Air Maroc E190; we are the only ones in J:






Chicken or prawns?






Coming into Casablanca:

 

[Jacques Vert]

Back at post #20 I stated that I like to spend the first night after a flight close to the arrival airport to allow for the risk of our flight arriving late or being cancelled, etc. I've been caught out a few times over the years. On this occasion we were due to arrive in Casablanca at 1350 and as we were hiring a car and driving to Tangier and Fes, I decided to break my rule and on arrival we would pick up a hire car and drive to Rabat where we would stay the first 2 nights, thus breaking down the driving distance into 2 easy portions. What could possibly go wrong?

Well firstly our flight was delayed by about 40 minutes but no sweat, we still had plenty of time to drive to Rabat. Next, despite having "fast track" status, it took over an hour to get through immigration as there was only one officer on duty. Despite this, we still arrived at the baggage carousel before any of the bags from our flight! Only problem, one of our bags didn't arrive at all.

So it's off to baggage services; another 45 minutes in a queue before we get to talk to a chapie who confirms our bag is still in BOD. So we fill in the forms and he promises to have the bag delivered to our accommodation in Rabat the following day.

By now, the rental car guy has gone home but we are able to get someone to phone him and he returns to the airport with our car. Finally on our way we arrive in Rabat about 1930 instead of 1600.

 

[ellen10]

I have loved following along on your France adventures (my favourite destination country). Lots of familiar regions and many new ones. Loved the commentary and all those photos.
I especially love food pics!

Thanks for sharing and enjoy your journey and stop overs home.