Back to France!

We, too, love the French bread...



November 24th- back to france! We had randomly chosen Bella’s birthday (the 25th) as our goal date to be back in France so we sadly left Santillana to make the 3 hour drive up to Bordeaux. As we were driving out of town we looked at our little almost five year old as she sat quietly in the back seat and over at a zoo sign, then towards each other- and decided we needed to take the girls to a zoo for a birthday present. We were very glad we did, because the zoo was fascinating (and we were 4 of 6 people in the zoo during our two hour visit!). The zoo was designed to be helpful in understanding the Altamira caves, and the large animal areas were faced with signs with information not only about the animals, but with photos of the cave paintings featuring these animals. And the animals featured were ones as close to their prehistoric ancestors as possible.
Some of our favorite things about the zoo:
-butterflies flying free in the greenhouse
-orangutang baby wearing a diaper playing in a playroom, then taking off his diaper and sniffing his butt.
-adult chimpanzee kissing Bella through the glass
-bear eating French bread

Primal conversation- some sort of hopping contest between the bird and the humans.

Informational signs showing connection to cave paintings.

Heading to Bordeaux....
Anyway, our zoo stop put us behind schedule so we headed out towards Bordeaux where Bella and I had booked us a chambre d'hote (like a bed and breakfast, usually converted mansions) for three nights and we didn’t get in until 7 or so. We headed up to our gargantuan rooms and then headed out for a quick dinner of pizza and apple tart just down the street. We realized that our hotel is in a fabulous position, just one block from the old pedestrian-only town. The city had smartly chosen to close down the old town to cars and instead install a tram system running through the narrow streets.

Bordeaux, now known for its wine, is a thriving, smart laid-back city with a lot of young people. Bordeaux was a bit slummy until the 70's when ex-French prime minister Alain Juppe was elected mayor and tore down all of the nasty river warehouses and converted the river into a pedestrian and biking area and ordering the cleaning of the soot-stained houses. Now its buildings gleam, the streets are neatly cobbled, and you wouldn’t know that you are in a large city at all.