Sitting riverside among the colourful flowers of the Jardins des Lumières, between the River Garonne and Place de la Bourse, it’s easy to appreciate the lure of Bordeaux. The Miroir d’eau (a large 2cm-deep pool) reflecting passing clouds and the monumental symmetry of Bordeaux’s grand cream-stone buildings is every photographer’s dream, as indeed it is for the children splashing about, playing amid its spurting water jets.
It’s a fine place to begin a visit to Bordeaux and gain some perspective of this magnificent city – the most extensive urban environment in the world to be recognised by Unesco as a world heritage site. Bordeaux’s city centre is a heady mix of “old” (in the days when Eleanor of Aquitaine would bind Bordeaux and Aquitaine to the English crown) and “new”. New, that is, for those fortunate to be in Bordeaux during the 18th century, when grand neoclassical buildings, wide boulevards, and elegant squares transformed the city.
