Du Vin, Chamallow, Pizza, Exploration

My leg ached a bit too much this morning to get out of the flat, so I let Hugo (also suffering from a gueule de bois) go out to his seminars before meeting him for lunch in the Jardin Public (I know, inventive name for the public park!). It was sunny, and warm...and well worth having our impromptu picnic! The park itself is also really lovely, more pictures here!

We then headed to the Musée d'Aquitaine for some culture, proof...I took many many photographs today, but I decided everyone needed to know what Hugo looked like before the end of my time here! So more about this place later. At the museum there were loads of statues with no heads or really ugly faces so we entertained ourselves quite loudly in the museum discussing the artwork. The only people who got upset were the art students, and they don't really count, they gave us some pretty funny looks though! I was quite surprised how empty the museum was to be completely honest...the ones in Normandy are usually a bit fuller!

After a little more exploring of the town we headed to an awesome café, do go if you're in Bordeaux ...it is right opposite the Grand Théâtre and it is called Comptoir Cuisine. Lovely lovely lovely! We headed in for a cup of tea (Jasmine Mandarin for me, Ceylan for Hugo) and some awesome tartes, a tarte citron meringuée for me, and a tarte tatin for Hugo...perfect, and just what we needed! On the way to the wine bar (known as Le Bar à Vin, and again well worth a visit...sommeliers who actually know their stuff, different wine glasses for different wines, and more importantly very very cheap with an amazing atmosphere) we ended up stopping and watching some street dancers. Who were really rather good! They were also just dancing just for fun of it, they weren't collecting money or anything...and a really large crowd had gathered, strange in a way to compare the atmospheres of Caen compared to Bordeaux. In Caen, it is more about the music than the dancing I would say, and Bordeaux has a slower way of life I would say. Anyways, back to the wine bar. As I said, well worth a visit...the order the wines are displayed on the menu reflect the order you're meant to drink them in, what could be better than that?!

The final place I will recommend is called Pink Flamingo, a pizza place with a twist! Hugo and I decided the best thing to do would be to order two pizzas and half them as they all sounded so good, so we had:-
- L'Aphrodite - Tranches d'aubergines grillées et marinées à l'ail, huile d'olive, pétales de piments rouge autour d'une louche de houmous maison
- La Che - Porc cuisiné « façon cubaine » (marinés 24h dans de l'ail, citron vert, oignons nouveaux et coriandre) avec ses bananes plantains frites.

During our time there we saw something rather strange. An entire exercise class of around fifty people casually doing press-ups in the square our restaurant overlooked! They were there about ten minutes then all jogged off into the distance. Flash mob exercise? I have no idea what it was, or why it was there, or who any of the people were, and why they were all dressed in primary colours...but it was very entertaining! I would say only in Bordeaux, but I guess there are probably thousands of city exercisers around the world and I'm just being naïve!

So, back to the food, although we were both pretty full, we couldn't turn down the Homer Simpson. A pizza covered in chocolate, Speculoos and marshmallows...see here. I mean, how could you turn that down?! We then had to roll wander home, and spent a quiet evening in chilling out, writing Manifestos, watching my primary school teachers on Eggheads (I know, crazy!), Astérix et Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre (where Hugo had to explain some of the in-jokes to me...really useful having a half French/English friend!) before heading to bed.