Handpicked experience · Bordeaux
★ 4.8Bordeaux, France
Two hours in a city that was black until the 1990s, whose trams draw power from the road rather than wires overhead, and whose cathedral had to put its bells in a separate building.
An eighteenth-century townscape laid out as a single composition
Façades restored to a colour most residents did not grow up seeing
A tram system engineered to keep cables out of the skyline
A free-standing belfry raised beside its cathedral
A flat basin on the quay that fills, empties and mists in turn
Two hours on level ground with a guide
A two-hour guided walk through the centre of Bordeaux, which is a more interesting city than its reputation as a wine label suggests. Almost everything you look at is eighteenth-century, and the two most striking things about it are both quite recent.
For most of the twentieth century Bordeaux was a dark city — the soft local limestone had absorbed two hundred years of soot, and the classical façades along the river read as grey-brown and grim. People described it as sullen, and meant it.
From the 1990s the city cleaned itself, façade by façade, under a programme that ran for years. The stone underneath turned out to be pale gold. Photographs from before and after look like two different places, and everyone who lives here remembers which one they grew up in.
Look up in the old centre and there is nothing above the tram tracks. The system was built with power delivered from a rail set into the road surface, energised only under the vehicle as it passes, because stringing cables through a protected eighteenth-century townscape was unacceptable.
It was developed here for that reason, and had the usual troubles of a first attempt before it settled. Cities elsewhere now use the same solution, which began as a local argument about not spoiling the view.
Beside the cathedral there is a separate tower, and the separation is not stylistic. The ground here is soft river silt, and the weight of a full stone belfry on the church itself was judged too much for the foundations, so it was built next door as an independent structure.
The bells are consequently in a different building from the congregation, which is a very practical solution to a very Bordeaux problem: a grand city built on ground that would rather be marsh.
The long unified frontage facing the water is not an accumulation. It was laid out as a single project in the eighteenth century, replacing the medieval walls with a continuous classical face for the port — a deliberate decision to make the river approach look like an argument for the city's wealth.
The wide shallow pool in front of it, which floods, drains and mists on a cycle, was added in the 2000s and is the only new thing in the composition.
Level walking on pavements and quaysides, so the going is easy; two hours covers the centre without rushing. The stone reflects heat in summer and the riverfront is exposed to wind in winter. Shade is scarce on the open squares, and the pool area is slippery when the mist cycle is running.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Because its limestone had absorbed two centuries of soot, so the eighteenth-century façades read as dark grey-brown for most of the twentieth century.
A long cleaning programme from the 1990s onward, façade by façade, which uncovered pale gold stone underneath and altered how the city looks entirely.
Power is supplied from a rail in the road surface, energised only under the passing vehicle, so that cables would not cross a protected historic townscape.
It was developed for this city and had teething problems, and the same approach is now used elsewhere.
The subsoil is unreliable, and a heavy belfry resting on the church was thought likely to overload it, so the bells were given a structure of their own.
It was conceived as one scheme rather than growing piecemeal, which is why the frontage reads as one long unbroken face rather than a row of separate buildings.
A large flat basin added in the 2000s that fills, drains and produces mist on a cycle, and it is the newest element in the composition.
Level and paved throughout, so it is easy going; the constraints are heat off the stone in summer and wind along the water in winter.