The moring of our last day in Bordeaux started out gray and wet. It was pouring, so we decided to go to the Mollat bookstore. This is not just a bookstore. It has 140,000 titles and 52 skilled booksellers located at computer stations set up throughout the store. The store consists of several store fronts that are joined together at the back. After a thorough browsing of Mollat, we went to a store that sold local products to find some things to take back home with us.

We decided to have lunch in an area of Bordeaux we hadn't explored before. As always, roads were blocked with the ever present constuction. We took what I claimed was a wrong turn. Jan's not so sure, since we ended up in the "red light" district! After a hurried departure we settled down in a small Italian restaurant for salad, pizza and chocolate mousse.

After lunch we were off to the capcMusée d'art contemporain. Along the way we once again passed the Monument aux Girondins. This monument is dedicated to the memory of a group of National Assembly deputies executed for trying to moderate the French Revolution. This time the scafolding was gone, so I did get a picture of this magnificent monument even though it was a cloudy day. During WWII, the Nazis had dimantled the entire 52 tons of bronze and were shipping it to be used in war production. The Résistance bombed the train and rescued the pieces. The monument was completely restored in 1983.

The capcMusée d'art contemporain was built in the 1820s as a warehouse for exotic imported products such as coffee and cocoa. The main floor of the museum housed a show of installations by Italian artist Tatiana Trouvé. The work was very interesting and really worked well in the display space allocated to it.

Once we left the main floor there were a series of small rooms each with a related set of works. One work that really interested me was "Autochtonous too high" by Tony Oursler. It was two dummys with heads covered by projection screen material. There were separate moving pictures of faces projected on these heads and a tapes of two voices connected with the two people. It was facinating to watch. The picture below comes from the museum's home page.

Tony Oursler, Autochtonous too high (1995)

The entire building was also very interesting at all levels. There was even a beautiful garden on the roof.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in at Notre Dame, a late rococo church. After leaving the church we discovered one part of an of exhibit of travel photos that was split among many of the galleries and museums of Bordeaux. The part we saw was on display at Bordeaux's city hall. Very thought provoking work.

We finished our last day in Bordeaux the same way we finished our first, at the nearby salon de thé.

April 10

We were supposed to fly from Bordeaux and arrive in Paris in time to catch a 1:40 flight from Paris to Chicago. We got to airport at 8 a.m. and began checking our luggage through. That's when the person checking our bags started hitting lots of computer keys and looking puzzled. We found out that our flight from Paris to Chicago had been canceled on March 21, and we had never been contacted about the cancelation. We were rebooked on a flight from Paris to Atlanta and on one more flight from Atlanta to Chicago. Instead of getting to Chicago at 3:30 p.m., we were now scheduled to land in Chicago at 10:40 p.m.

Before leaving the airport we noticed again one of the peculiarities of Bordeaux. Great wine growing areas are scarce. The area between the sidewalk and the airport building must have been prime wine space since it was planted with vines.

The flight to Paris was uneventful and at 4:30 p.m. we began to board the flight for Atlanta. When we got to the gate we were given new boarding passes. We had been assigned new seats in the very comfortable business class.

Our meals were served on tablecloths and we had cloth napkins. We were given a new glass for each type of wine we wanted. The glass was in fact glass and held about a cup. Meals were served in courses, and we could choose each course off the menu. The menu choices follow.

• Hors D'Oeuvre
  • Medallion of duck foie gras and orange confit
  • Marinated scallops with coriander and citrus fruit
• Main Courses
  • Pan-seared noisette of lamb, buttered French green beans and Lyonnaise potatoes
  • Fillet of salmon with asaragus velouté sauce, rice and green asparagus
  • Fillet of chicken in lemon sauce, eggplant ratatouille and basmati rice with baby vegetables.
• Cheese
  • Camembert, saint-nectaire, bleu d'Auvergne
• Deserts
  • Caramel mousse pastry
  • Lemon tart
  • Chocolate cake
  • Serbet served with cookies
  • Basket of Fruit

You can have more than one desert, if you can eat that much! The light meal was just as good, just a bit smaller!

During dinner we got to know the gentleman seated next to us. He works in the areospace industry and was going to Atlanta for one day of business. We had a great time talking about wine and food as well as the area in southern France where he lives.

The plane from Atlanta to Chicago was delayed because the pilots were late in getting to the airport. We landed in Chicago at 10:45 and by the time we got to the bus center it was 11:15 p.m. Our ride back to the hotel was made more enjoyable since the diver had a puppy along with her for the night. We were up at 4:30 a.m. to avoid the morning traffic around Chicago. Instead we hit a major tie up around Milwaukee. Got home at about noon.

When we came in the door there were two happy dogs who were very excited to have us back home.