Saturday September 25th mileage 11379 Pessac Bordeaux

Up and had breakfast with Jill and Mark, then updated the blog for the three missing days whilst Jill went to have her hair done.

Researched on the internet Arromanche (where my father landed after D-day) and also a village in France near Limoge called Oradour-sur-Glan where there was a Nazi attrocity, and programmed these locations into tomtom.

Later in the day we went to Bordeaux via the park and ride on the tram and visited the U-boat docks in Bordeaux harbour.  These are huge concrete protected docking pens that the Germans built as soon as they occupied France to service their U-Boat fleet in the Atlantic. 

They reminded me of the concrete bunkers in Hitler's headquarters in Poland.  The concrete was very thick, but also constructed with gaps to absorb the blast should a bomb havz a direct hit.  Apparently the Allies bombed the Bordeaux harbour repeatedly to try and destroy these buildings, but they survived because of their robust construction.  It reminded me of the last scene in "Das Boot" where the submarine gets sunk as it waits to enter the protected docks!!

We then walked along the river side to the Unesco world heritage site of the buildings along the Bordeaux waters edge.  This is now a popular place for families to stroll whilst their children roller skate and ride along the promenade. 

They have built one of those multi-level roller skate area where teenagers perform fantastic tricks with bikes, skateboards and roller blades.  We noticed that it was definately not cool to be waring protective clothing!!

Further down the front they have built a mirror lake, which is a 1cm deep water feature that changes from being empty to having mist spraying from jets, to then filling with water to give a mirror effect.  Very popular with teenagers splashing each other!!

Then back to Pessac via the new tram system to watch grand prix qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix on Marks wall sized TV.

For evening meal we went to a  Piella and Couscous takeaway shop and had a combination meal of Couscous and piella. The woman cooking in the shop was having great trouble with a four feet wide piella dish full to the brim, but clearly not level, she kept turning the dish  and it was sloshing out over the low side.  The meal was delicious though!!

More later

TOR