February 14, 2026 - First rain-free day in Bordeaux.

Today was the 1st day since our arrival that it wasn’t raining so we took advantage of the cloudy and windy day to do a bit of caching. We saw quite a few places that we want to visit later. We started with a cache at the Porte Cailhau, then along the Garonne River all the way pass the basin de Lumières and further. We passed by la cité du vin, which is an amazing feat of modern architecture. We plan on visiting when we get the city pass. We also stopped by la bourse, where we will be hosting a geocaching event across the street at the mirror d’eau later during our stay. We stopped for lunch at the busy les Halles de Bacalan. Walking along the Garonne River we did a cache on the Chaban Delmas bridge, which is the longest lift bridge at 77 meters in height in Europe. At night it’s lighting changes with the tides, blue for high tide and green for low tide. 

On our way to our first stop of the day. Beautiful street art everywhere.

Porte Cailhau

Beautiful building along the Garonne River

Place de la bourse and Le Miroir d'Eau

More beautiful building along the Garonne River

Le Pont de Pierre

Marthe Adélaide Modeste Testas (née Al Pouessi) - Slave

The sector of Darwin across the Garonne.

Chaban Delmas bridge

Passage under the bridge.

Cité du vin

les Halles de Bacalan

Our lunch - arancini with a salad.

Jacques on his way to find another cache.

Some more street art.

One of our stops was at a bakery where we finally found a mille-feuilles for Jacques. I don’t know if we’ll be able to find the place again because all in all we walked over 20,500 steps with more than 13 and half km doing many little side streets. Apart for a short lunch break we walked all day from 10 to 5. The only other stop was at the tourist bureau where we received much better information than yesterday. Yesterday the person we talked to didn’t have much to say about activities to do during our stay but today, the lady at the desk was full of information and advice on things to see here in Bordeaux as well as surrounding areas. We went out of the bureau with many maps and booklets. She said come back any time during your stay. She gave us enough reading material to keep us busy during tomorrow’s forecasted heavy rain. 

Some more street art while looking for a geocache.

Final stop on our way home. La Galerie Bordelaise.

Tonight, we tried the St. Émilion wine at $6.49. This was a bit of an upgrade in taste from the 3.99 one but not overwhelmingly so. Tomorrow night or the next night that we open a bottle we will have graduated to a $9 bottle with a grand cru from Bordeaux. It should start being interesting soon. After that bottle we will have to go shopping again. 

This morning, we met Jeanne, Jacques’, our host’s wife. She seems a lot more on top of things than him. When I asked him about the garbage and what items to put in each color bag, he didn’t know the answer, he told us that his wife would explain because it was all the same to him. She explained very well what items were supposed to go in each color bag and even offered to divide it for us, but we declined. I would not want to be going through garbage so I don’t imagine that she would relish it anymore than us. 

The square near the apartment was full of people when we arrived. Jeanne told us that after a week of rain when there is good weather as today, people get together for drinks and food in the square. It would have been nice to go but we were too tired.