Bordeaux Beckons

In our final days in Toulouse, we returned to see a concert at Musée des Augustins, just a few blocks from our apartment.  It was pre-empted, but we were able to wander around this 14/15th centuries convent one last time, with the added attraction of seeing it at night. We discovered that the details on the carvings were even more spectacular at night.        

  Here it is at night – and here it is a few days earlier in the day light.

And there was this long row of gargoyles on exhibit, which were a little unnerving in the night light. None of my photos did them justice, but I think the eeriness is captured.

We also went to the Jacobins Convent (13/4th centuries) to see the tomb to Saint Thomas Aquinas.  In Chile, Daniel wrote his masters thesis on Thomas Aquinas’ concept of order. The pictures below are of the tomb, part of a window of the convent, and a man who was playing across the street, the entire time we were inside.  His music echoed throughout the building.

 

As I’m typing this, Daniel tells me that they’re broadcasting Cdn hockey on TV. We couldn’t get any information about the Ontario election, or about anything else that is going on in Canada … but they’re covering hockey :-).

Our final evening in Toulouse was a little tumultuous as there was a train strike announced and the next day were were travelling to Bordeaux by train.  We stayed up late trying to make sense out of all the information being provided. Lots of news coverage, and we were a little nervous the next day when we got to the train station and this is what we saw (below)  … it was packed and chaotic.  But once again, Daniel sought out the train officials and they assured him, that the train would be on time. The bus station was right beside the train station, so off he went to check out the possibility of bus travel, but was told there were no buses to Bordeaux. Seemed a little odd, but our language skills leave us little opportunity to argue.

We waited, with our bags, and as you can see – we don’t travel lightly.  We were soon to learn that this poses a problem when you decide to try travelling second class on the train. There is almost no room for luggage. You also need a trampoline to get up onto the coach … and then the person on the platform has to find a way to toss suitcases up, while others behind, are pushing to board. Every single time we have found ourselves in a mess of our own making on this trip, strangers have pitched in to help out, and it happened again this time. People showed us the ropes (the hidden luggage spots), moved their own stuff to make more space for ours and while we grumbled quite a bit, they remained good humoured and gracious.  

The train left only a few minutes late (probably because of us), and 2 hour the trip to Bordeaux was even better than I had expected.  Pretty countryside full  of small villages, ancient homes and churches. The vineyards start to appear about 45 minutes before you arrive – they go on and on and on. We spent the final half hour of the ride working out a strategy for exiting the train without further humiliating ourselves. It all went smoothly. We’ve arrived in Bordeaux.