3/14 - We had planned a pre-cruise night in Bordeaux, so we flew into CDG a day early, breezed through passport control (no documentation needed, just our passports), and after a bit of a walk and taking a shuttle train, made our way to Gare de CDG. Our train to Bordeaux wasn't departing until 10:40 am (we arrived at 6 AM from IAH) so we had a bit of a wait. There was an earlier train but the change fee was almost as much as we had paid for our tickets so we settled down to wait.

Our train for Bordeaux departed right on time and we settled in for our 4 hour trip. Tip concerning train travel-don't dawdle! Get on the train as soon as you can as baggage storage spaces may be limited. We secured spots for our luggage and then found our reserved seats. Go 1st class-it isn't much more and your seats are reserved and obviously nicer than 2nd in a number of ways.

We arrived in Bordeaux around 2:30 pm and all four of us (my wife and I, her sister, and her sister's husband) squeezed into a taxi with our luggage. Our taxi driver took us on about a 10 minute ride to our hotel, which cost us 20 euro. We stayed at the Quality Inn Bordeaux, which turned out to be nice lodging in central Bordeaux. We had missed lunch and dinner in France as dinner doesn't start any earlier than 7 PM so we walked around near our hotel. We wandered into a wine tasting venue called Max Bordeaux Wines. The tastings there are done by inserting a "credit card" which you purchase credits on and then insert into a slot above the wine you are interested in. Then you can pay for a 1 oz, 3oz, or 5 oz pour at various prices starting at 1 Euro. We were greeted by a young Canadian man who spoke English but also perfect French. He introduced himself as Lee and hearing that we were American, shepherded us the rest of our time there speaking English to us. We ended up having an enjoyable evening of tasting Bordeaux wines and eating charcuterie with cheese and crackers. Read more