See Paris and...? And see Bordeaux. And La Rochelle!
Well, my friends, what do you know about France? BUT? Yes, here you are - croissants, terrines, onion soup? There is. You are Simenon, Delon, Dumas. Yeah. You are Napoleon, de Gaulle, a crowd of Louis. I agree. Cannes, Versailles, Cote d'Azur. Well. Eiffel Tower, Mont Blanc, Languedoc. Enough. What about Platini, Zidane, Griezmann, yes, and Messi? Everything, everything, everything. Petanque? I hear. Mistral? I see. Cheese-r-r, wine-o-o... Everything is true. But, believe me, France is still a song!
Remember Yves Montand: a song flies under the sky of Paris, Sous le ciel de Paris, S'envole une chanson, Mmmm. . . Elle est né e d'aujourd'hui, Dans le cœ ur d'un garç on... True, Paris, like the capital in any other state, is far from the whole country. Therefore, we decided (we managed a few months before the pandemic) to start studying the Fifth Republic from the rear, from the outskirts. And the first tickets were taken to Bordeaux.
So, Bordeaux. Oh Bordeaux! The city is a fairy tale, the city is a dream! Everything here is amazing. Architecture, history, but. . . In this city, vines grow right behind the glass of the airport. Is it any wonder that this place is considered the world capital of winemaking? Well deserved guys, well deserved. I was in Rome, and in Portugal, and I was in Napa, California. The best wine is here! White, red, whatever. Look through Wikipedia, or better yet, just take my word for it. In prices from the European "ruble" to infinity - all the local wines are beyond praise. For me, maybe red Bordeaux is tart and overly saturated, but these are my personal cockroaches - I am a fan of white wines.
Cultural cut. Of course, in my rating, “number van” is a monument to the Girondins. Mighty monument! I spent 4 hours near it and then every day I tried to walk nearby - this is a real miracle of art and you can look at it forever! Sculptures, a column, fountains… Horses with paws and tails of dragons, angels with cold eyes… Of course, Square de la Bourse (Exchanges) explodes the brain. There in the center is the fountain of the Three Graces, and around it is the old stock exchange and the customs museum, but most importantly, in front of them is the Water Mirror. This is such a thing - a healthy granite area, sorry, an area that is covered either with fog, or with water, or with a light breeze, and here you can run, jump, lie down, swim... Complete delight. And there, in Bordeaux, visual ecstasy - the Cathedral of Saint-Andre with Catholic portals, gargoyles. And the gates of the Big Bell, and the bridge over the Garonne (this is the local river), and the building of the Bolshoi Theater. And museums: fine arts, contemporary art, winemaking (of course). Oh, what a drawbridge in front of this wine museum - it is drawn not in a vertical plane, as, for example, in St. Petersburg, but in a horizontal one...
By the way, for lovers of cooking on vacation, weekend agricultural fairs are popular in Bordeaux (and how I wrapped it up! ). At the same museum, on the same Garrona embankment. Take whatever you want - all your own, French, just from the field, pasture, sea. And such a feature: if, for example, Moroccan tomatoes are on the counter for 1.5 euros and French - for 6, then every respectful Frenchman will take a tomato for 6 eurobucks. Here you have patriotism, and help, and support for domestic agricultural producers. But enough words. Ahead - La Rochelle!
Which of the boys, and even half of the girls, is not familiar with this phrase? Especially for those kids who are now under 50? Yes, it was there that Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan had breakfast after the murder of Milady, in front of Cardinal Richelieu. By the way, that religious leader was really a competent military man and really besieged La Rochelle. But now is not about that. Now about what a fabulous place it is, not trampled down by compatriots...
Firstly, getting there is not difficult (as well as anywhere in France). At the train station in Bordeaux, we took a train ticket to this Ikhno Sochi and that's all... Here it is necessary to say a couple of words about the French. Heard a lot, read that, they say, they are swaggering, narcissistic, often stupid... Lies! Charming and likable personalities. Everywhere. Always. In all walks of life... When buying tickets, we did not rely on our French prononcer (due to his absence), my wife knows English, Italian, I can convey emotion through facial expressions and dance... But we bought tickets. Everyone helped us: cashiers, a queue, a flock of refugee kids from the Middle East, dogs wagging their tails vigorously...
We flew to the place in a few hours. Flew - the right word: the train sometimes accelerated to 300 km / h. Outside the window, the vineyards merged into an absolute velvet carpet, over which huge fans of wind farms solicitously towered. There are hundreds of them.
And here is the La Rochelle train station on the horizon… The city. And there. . . There is paradise. I have never seen so many yachts anywhere. Such ebbs and flows simply do not happen in nature (as I thought before). You want to stay away from the towers of the Old Port, because there you can really hear and feel the groan and rumble of the Templars and Huguenots. If you want restaurants, eateries, cafes, bistros for all tastes (especially fish) and wallets - this is for you in La Rochelle. We even found Moroccan cuisine there (and after visiting that red-beautiful country we love Berber food), and it turned out to be very authentic. Why the kitchen, here even the station is a work of art.
The hotel had perhaps our best breakfasts in France. Hot, hot croissants - the size of half an arm, baguettes that crunched with a crust in their hands, coffee, the aroma of which blew the roof, dor blue and brie - among the morning cheeses... And the waiting girls cooed in such a way that it seemed in the hands of a guitar - and here it is a song, sorry, chanson in the style of Edith Piaf, Mireille Mathieu or Zas... Yes... But stop. Paris is waiting for us!
We arrived in Montparnasse (Gare Montparnasse) - not the best station, to be honest (we later visited Gare de Lyon - so he impressed). But train stations in Paris are not the main thing (although it is also an interesting thing). We ran into the subway there. My friends, never, I conjure, never go down into the depths of the Paris subway. Only London can be worse, more incomprehensible, more terrible. . . Even in Tbilisi, with their grape-round and drunken alphabet, it is easier to understand. I'm not talking about other former Soviet subways. And the metro in Rome, Istanbul is generally a labyrinth for kids. But sha, we're talking about Paris. I did not understand how to determine the desired composition by the flashing numbers on the scoreboard and how to navigate in the transitional galleries. Fortunately, we rented a hotel right in the center of the city and I didn’t use this transportation system anymore.
Our hotel was not far from Gare Saint-Lazare (these railways were given to me! ). And this means that the Opera Garnier, the La Fayette gallery, and the Moulin Rouge were within walking distance... What can I say, we walked to the Louvre, ha, and to the Arc de Triomphe, right along avenue des Champs-É lysé es (who didn’t understand - Champs Elysees, give me a handkerchief, I'm crying... ).
Paris is mighty. We went to the hyped Louvre (well, how to live without the Mona Lisa? ) and some completely free museums, not inferior in beauty and exhibits. We walked along the dusty boulevards to the Invalides (Hô tel des Invalides) and froze in front of the Alexandre III bridge (Pont Alexandre III). We drank by the Seine, looking at Notre Dame de Paris rising from behind the fence, and drank in the fabulous Paul Royale. By the way, about "drank". Here it is possible everywhere and always. Well, probably not up to the pig squeal - I have not seen this. But here they drink! In the same Palais Royal, not far from us, two monsieurs sat down (similar to the president of their country, and both) and right on the bench (and there tables were attached to the benches) they drank wine from glasses the size of my washing machine. They say that almost in their constitution it is written about the mandatory availability of wine and baguette for every Frenchman. Personally, I have no doubt.
Baguettes… This is the religion of France. They are bought in armfuls and given to beloved women, they start and stop revolutions, they are launched into space and lowered to the seabed (by the way, just in case, remember the shapes of aircraft and underwater vehicles). This is an appetizer, dessert and main course. Moon and sun, drought and rain. Freedom, equality and fraternity... Stop, this is not from this opera. But there is no such food anywhere else...
And one more thing about food. If you have heard two words "onion" and "soup" and do not know what it is - you are in the capital of this country. In no city in the world (even in France itself) do they make such a common delicacy. This is something! Yes, there is gazpacho, minestrone, kharcho. There is borscht and Don soup. . . But onion soup. . . Guys, you have to come here just for the sake of it! Each restaurant in Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower has its own.
Just like Paris itself. Everyone has his own. And in every visit... And everyone has their own France. At any moment in life…
Like Yves Montand: a song flies under the sky of Paris, Sous le ciel de Paris, S'envole une chanson, Mm mm. . . Elle est né e d'aujourd'hui, Dans le cœ ur d'un garç on…
