Au revoir, Bordeaux, et le retour

 On Friday night there was a show at the Bassin des Lumières, a World War II German submarine base whose massive space is used for light projections with music.  These involved Dalí art and Gaudí architecture, something overwhelming to see in a large space.

In the morning, the tour of Bordeaux involved getting from the dock to the city center by tram. The guides distributed tickets to us.  It was a different way of looking around the area where we’d been at the start of the trip.  The Grand Théatre opera house is an emblem of the city.

On our return to the ship and after lunch, we could see interesting streets in the Chartrons area where we were docked.  Here is rue Notre-Dame.

For the morning, we had instructions to leave our bags outside the room at 5.15 for a 6 a.m. bus.  We put the bags out, and the ship had a croissant breakfast available.  We went to the airport in Uniworld's full-sized bus, even though there weren't that many people going at that time.  We got to the airport way early for our 9.15 flight, and were in a grumpy mood while waiting for the counter to open, unclear if the main marked line required us to have our baggage tags printed, and the kiosks for printing them weren't accepting our documents.  Eventually the counter opened and we were checked in.  At this airport it was a short distance to our gate for the short flight to Paris, still not much shorter than the time of the train, which would be preferred if just going to Paris.

It was nice that the short flight included a shortbread cookie.  Anyway, we landed, we had the involved connection at CDG between Terminal 2F and 2E, this time Hall K, which gave a better impression of this airport than I've had before.

On the flight, we weren't able to get the bulkhead seats this time, and were cramped in a row with three on the side.  I'd been feeling congested, had strained breathing, and put on a mask, worrying about the situation, but when we got home I tested negative for COVID and have felt better since then.  On the ship, other passengers had alerted us to severe weather warnings along the East Coast; we did a bit of holding to arrive a few minutes after schedule.  Anyway, on arrival of the flight we had Global Entry, where the kiosks now recognize our faces without our needing to put the passports down, and don't print a receipt; we just flashed our passports to the agent afterwards.  We were just in time for the bus to our home area.

We were home from a good trip.  It was nice to pick up the French scene: fashionable dressing, people out in crowds.  The cruise was enjoyable for the food and drink, giving a mixed impression for being nice to see different places while based in the same room (no need to pack up) while also making for a rushed experience at the stops.

Nice start to cruise

 On Sunday morning we noted much quieter streets in Bordeaux.

A little more wandering led to other sights: the Cathedral of Saint-André, and the Hotel-de-Ville ( City Hall).

 

This unfortunately is the historic door of the Hotel de Ville, burned in protests in late March.

We left the hotel close to the noon check-out time, and got a taxi to the dock of the S.S. Bon Voyage.  Boarding went well, with lunch ready, and it looks like the start of an excellent cruise.  We used Uniworld at the end of the 2022 cruise season, and are going early in the 2023 season; they have increased their green commitment by offering simple wooden key cards, and encouraging people to have the daily schedules on their phones rather than on paper.

The room was ready before too long, we met nice people, and had a good dinner.  The ship went under the historic Pont de Pierre at the time required by low tide, and we got to the first stop of Cadillac still in daylight.

In the morning, the ship needed to leave the shore and go mid-river for the inland tidal phenomenon called Mascaret.  Then we were bused away from Cadillac to Chateau Cazeneuve, once belonging to King Henri IV and Queen Margot.  It’s interesting for furniture and tapestries, and we sampled Sauternes sweet wines.  Only outside pictures were allowed.

Editing to show pictures from Monday dinner:

 

Arrived in Bordeaux

 It was time to leave Paris; it was raining as we needed to walk a block from our hotel, the voco Montparnasse, to the Gare Montparnasse.  People stand in the main hall waiting for the track number to be posted, often 15 minutes before departure, but we got a little more time than that.  The tickets (in our case on my Apple Wallet) were checked as we entered the platform.

We boarded; for my one time on the TGV I booked the best, the full-service Inoui rather than the budget Ouigo, and in first class.  I booked the upper level for the view, and the stairs weren’t as shallow with luggage as The Man in Seat 61 (helpful site for rail travel) suggested.  We settled in at the seats facing each other at the end of the car, next to the luggage rack.  

We took off, the train’s Wi-Fi was spotty and it didn’t work to order from the snack bar on the phone, but I went and got some food and drink as we covered the distance in such a short time, sometimes going over 300 km/h.

A crowded train, and it seemed this dog needed to move

Mustard fields

The speed displayed

On arrival at Bordeaux St-Jean station, we exited and saw the tram lines, but no apparent place to get a taxi.  I needed to do some looking, and it seemed we were in front of Hall 1, and to our left we needed to go past a jutting out to Hall 2, where there’s a taxi stand.  There were a few people waiting with no taxis, but the cabs came one by one until one was ready for us.

We got to the Quality Hotel in the city’s large pedestrian zone, where the driver needed to ask for the bollards to drop so the cab could enter.  The room wasn’t ready even after 2, so we wandered a little, noting how lively the streets are.  When the room was ready, we were impressed at how big a room it was, a suite by some definitions.  Still the toilet room was separate from the other bathroom, on different sides of the bed.

 

After a brief rest, to eat early we went to Le Grand Café.  A few pictures of crowded streets, prominent squares, and the Miroir d’Eau reflecting pool.

Place de la Bourse

Place du Parlemenr

Porte Cailhou

Miroir d’Eau

These are good impressions of a lively city in a short time, tomorrow we board the cruise, and we look forward to more time in Bordeaux at the end.

Planning the spring 2023 trip: really, another cruise?

 We got home in November 2022 with good thoughts about our river cruise experience, and the benefits of becoming repeat customers with Uniworld were also appealing.  There was one offer that expired the day after our return, too soon to think about doing this.  

Just a little later, there was another sale offer for the Bordeaux cruise, which is where I was focused, an area of France where I haven't been and has been of interest to me.  As I remember, I initiated a booking on the budget deck and it was showing sold out, but I contacted them and they got us a cabin.

As we booked the cruise, it was uncertain what the rest of the trip would be.  First, for the flight over, I was planning to convert credit card points to airline miles.  Among Chase's partners, being based in the U.S. for a transatlantic trip, I think first of United, but as their transatlantic miles price is usually over 30,000 miles each way, I was finding better deals on Europe-based partners.  I first looked at Aer Lingus to go from Boston to Bordeaux via Dublin, but it became clear that there could be problems being on an island and something going wrong with the one flight to Bordeaux.

Seeing that Air France via Paris would be better, it gradually came to be that we could spend about a week in Paris before the cruise.  Even after using IHG points for the stay in Amsterdam, the leftover points, annual free nights for having two credit cards with them, and a 10% rebate of the Amsterdam points meant that we'd have a free Paris stay just by buying a small number of points at the cost of less than a night.  We'd be convenient to Gare Montparnasse, where we could experience the TGV train to Bordeaux.

On the Flying Blue program, a one-way Boston-Paris flight could be had for 17K miles; I think it helps that Boston is in a lower-distance mile band.  There was also a bonus for converting American Express Membership Rewards. (I should also note that there's a money component to award booking, larger than with U.S.-based airlines.) I started the booking, and with a confirmation code there was an error message that I needed to call.  I understand that this is common with award bookings on points just transferred from another program, an effort to watch for fraud.  It took a few calls, some cut off, but the outbound was booked.

I was still thinking in terms of some time in Italy after the Bordeaux cruise, but it came to be that we didn't want to be away for so long, and there weren't great options for getting from Bordeaux to Rome or another Italian gateway.  We finally decided just to return home after the cruise, a connection from Bordeaux via Paris, and I completed that reward booking with a similar need to call.

In both directions, we were booked on the later of Air France's two flights on the route.  In late December, I got a notice that our flights had been changed: those flights were taken off the schedule for those days.  We were on the earlier flights, and that's how the outbound stayed, but a few days later I got an email in Spanish with a link to AF's Mexican site saying the original flight was cancelled, and not showing us having anything.  The originally rebooked flights were still on the timetable, and I made a call that got that reinstated.  There was another notice changing our flight out of Bordeaux to something still earlier, and the cruise line will probably want us up really early for their transfer to the airport.  Oh, and our bid for an upgraded stateroom was approved, much closer to the cruise start than it was last time.

Going over, our flight arrival is set for 6 a.m., and I was able to add an IHG free night so our room is booked for the previous night and we can have it ready on arrival.  We look forward to interesting times, having seen about the ongoing protests in Paris, apparently generally not affecting travelers all that much, and we don't have too much of an agenda.

But back to the plans to go to Italy: we're looking for a trip there in September.  Margaret has been looking to take Business Class when possible; I look at Flying Blue's Promo Rewards every month, and I understood I was seeing a good deal out of Montreal, which is about the same distance as Boston for us.  With a bonus for converting Chase points to Flying Blue, I booked a September trip in Business going over and Premium Economy on the return, looking good even though there is a notable monetary component to the booking.  I later learned that these didn't meet the definition of Promo Rewards; they're the low end of the dynamic rewards pricing, but we'll make the best of it.  Also, I completed the booking, after sleeping on it for a night, on the day that Flying Blue started charging for seat assignments on awards, but then they got the system fixed so they didn't charge on North American routes.