While, we have travelled around France many times, this is our first trip to Bordeaux, having even once bypassed it on the way to Spain, but still visiting Tours, Angers, and Biaritz on the way. It is somewhere that we were looking forward to exploring having heard good things about Bordeaux from friends. Bordeaux is now the sixth largest city in France, known as the Capital of Wine. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.

In terms of history, which is a good way to start to understand a city, Bordeaux was first founded as a settlement by the Celts around 300 BC and established in the River Garonne estuary, where it meets that Atlantic Ocean. By 60 BC, it had been captured by the Romans, who established a commercial city port – particularly in the trade in tin. After the demise of the Roman empire, in common with many European cities in the following turbulent centuries, it was fought over, raided, and conquered by numerous powers, including the Vandals, Franks, Visigoths, Vikings, Normans, Basques, until in around 950AD, when William IV restored previous ruling family, the Dukes of Aquitaine (later also known as the House of Poitiers).

The last in the line of the House of Aquitaine was Eleanor, who married Henry II, King of England, having previously been the Queen of France...She led an interesting life… By creating a tax free status between Bordeaux and England, both territories thrived from the trade in wine and nuts from France and wheat and textiles from England, but that is not to say that English hegemony was universally popular in the region. Nothing lasts for ever. France annexed Bordeaux after the decisive Battle of Castillon, severely reducing English influence in France.

As the world became smaller with exploration and the creation of colonies, so Bordeaux’s importance grew, From the middle of the 1700s, it became the second largest port in the world after London benefitting from the import of sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton, indigo for dyeing, and…slaves. It is in this prosperous period around 5000 of the existing buildings and quays in the old part of Bordeaux were built. An interruption in Bordeaux’s prosperity occurred as a result of the French revolution, when France’s West Indian colonies were lost, but then resumed as France opened up once more and with the acquisition of new African colonies.

As in other ‘world cities, Bordeaux’s history is encapsulated in the buildings, streets, and monuments.