Arrive in Bordeaux - Explore City Centre

Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France
Driving into the city, I slowly got used to the manual stick shift after a four-year hiatus with six passengers providing encouragement in the back. All went well until we arrived at the hotel's underground car park and found the van was too tall to go in. It was the same story with all the other parking garages in the area. We were told there was one above ground parking lot somewhere in the the city centre but would be unlikely to find a spare space in it. So we parked on a side street (2-hour limit) and walked a hundred yards to the hotel. We decided to go for lunch and, after placing our orders, Anne and I would go and try to find another space to park.

Anne was horrified when I told her that I wanted to see if we could actually get the van in the hotel garage . She would walk along side and check to make sure that I wouldn't hit any of the low beams. As I pulled up to the parking garage door, I realized I needed a code number to get into the garage. By this time, of course, there was a car waiting behind me to get in. Anne boldly gave the driver some French signs to back off and I pulled to one side while she went to get the code number. Wonder of wonders, the van actually fit although I was ducking every time I drove under a beam.

After lunch, we came back to the hotel to freshen up and then walked through the city to get on a 70-minute double decker bus tour. It was while we were sitting on the upper deck of the bus that my phone rang and it was the baggage desk at Pearson airport in Toronto calling to say they had my bag - in Toronto! They said I would have to phone Air France and tell them they would have to pick up my baggage from the ServiceAir desk. So who knows when it will arrive. There was still five hours between when I called Air France and the next flight from Toronto to Paris but all the airline could assure me was that they would notify the Air France staff in Toronto. Stay tuned for further updates!

After the bus tour, seven tired people tracked back to the hotel where some of us went to have an early night while others of us went off to buy some clean underwear.
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Comments

Sharon
2014-06-18

Hope the need for clean underwear wasn't a result of the parking issues.

Vicky
2014-06-21

Absolutely hilarious. I can't stop laughing!

2025-02-10

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