Bergerac

Bergerac is a little village on the Dordogne river a few hours train from Bordeaux.
It is particularly well known for its wine and even has a wine museum where the local plonk can be sampled.


The local church with a wedding underway.


A tree in the cort yard of the wine museum.


Luckily I managed to arrive on market day.


The bridge across the Dordogne river.

Arcachon

Went on day trips to Arcachon in france twice during my recent stay in Bordeaux.
The highlights were the Dune du Pyla, which is a giant sand dune that you can walk along as well as getting to see a red squirrel in the forests.






The above three pictures are all of the lovely Dune du Pyla.



Some old war relic with some interesting graffiti.


The beaches were also extremely nice although the water was a little chilly.


Some forest that was scattered around the town.


Random architecture shot.

The never ending Bordeaux saga

Just a few more pictures from Bordeaux, these will probably be the last for the time being.

First up is a photo of the scene in Victore square in central Bordeaux just after france had lot the world cup.


On a happier note, not that I felt sorry for them losing anyway, here are some pictures from the bordeaux botannical gardens.

Sunflower with a bumble bee and just to end the myth according to wikipedia they can sting.


Good old gorse, apparently not such a weed in France.


Also not a weed in france.


The famous fountain in bordeaux, can never have to many pictures.

Danes

According to a recent news article it seems like the Danes are the happiest people on the planet, not that one should put two much faith in such surveys. But being in Odense Denmark at the moment I can at least say that they are extremely polite and keep there cities a lot cleaner than the french do. Also today I did walk past 150 Danes line dancing in a park to awful yank country music. That has to require a fairly high sense of euphoria if nothing else.

Changing of the Guard

A video of the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace.
It is a bit shaky at best but it does convey nicely the quality of the viewing location that we managed to get.

Fire works

Here is a video of the fire works on last day of the Bordeaux wine festival.



It looked alot better in real life.

Bordeaux gardens

One thing I can quite confidently say is that the Bordeaux botanic gardens are rather mediocre with most of the plants dead or dying not that I blame them with the high 30 degree temperature around here. Still some of the buildings in the gardens were rather nice.


A pretty water weed.

Wine festival

The Bordeaux annual wine festival just happened to coincide with my work trip luckily enough.
For 12 euros you could get a glass and 12 free tastings which was more than enough to give anyone a scorching headache in the stifling heat.
The fire works at the end of the festival was by far the best that I have ever seen it went on for a good 20 minutes and was beautifully coreographed.


Ben and the festivals wine gods and godesses.


Enjoying the bounty.

St Emilion

Just when I thought I had seen one of the most beautiful places on earth we went on a wine tour to St Emilion. It has to be the most beautiful little village I have ever seen not that I have seen that many beautiful villages.
The main point of the visit was to tour a few vinyards which we did and I managed to find a nice sweet white at the last vinyard.


The village is surounded by endless vinyards.


Plenty of old stone relics to please the eye.


A tour of the old city led to this lovely sight.


Some lovely old windmills.

Group BBQ day

Despite the fact that I was yet too meet anyone in the CNRS research group we managed to get invited to the annual group BBQ.
It was very different to the average BBQ in Australia as it was a lot more relaxed affair with lunch spread across about two to three hours with a different wine served with every dish. Also there was no cricket although there was petanque. The one similarity was that one someone did rock up in there budgie smugglers.


The beach at the lake we went too, quite impressive for a man made lake.


Ben and Mark sampling the wine.


Some of the punters.


Always time too spot a critter or two.


Petanque the antipodean contingent was throughly thrashed.