I've arrived in #Bordeaux. The outskirts, as I come into the centre are, as always grey and almost derelict. The hotel is modern and close to the old centre. I wander out and find an arcade that is art nouveau/deco and I'm in my element. I am back in the thirties, drinking wine, waiting for my usual goats cheese and honey salad. Of course, then I probably wouldn't have been allowed out alone. I get a text from the daughter saying she's made a friend in Perugia. I get excited and then she sends a photo - a pigeon! I remember the anxiety of a a mother with an only child, always on the lookout for other children to play with her. And then she sends another text saying she's found a real human, an Australian girl the same age and I relax. I continue to explore. I was here with my husband, probably 30 years ago. We had gone to #Paris to visit the architect friend whom I recently met up with and the husband decided he wanted to go on the new fast trains. We picked Bordeaux. I remember because at some point the train stopped and the husband got out to have a chat with someone on the platform, just to stretch his legs, he said. I was sitting wondering what I would have to do if he missed getting back in, as he often became engrossed in conversations and forgot about time. I was ready to grab both bags and jump off. It was the days without mobiles. I wondered how we managed to stay so calm. I also remember that that was the time I thought about making sure I always travelled with a small flask of something strong! He did get back on in time and we continued on to Bordeaux. In those days, you walked until you found a sign saying room for rent. We found one, up a spiral staircase, a huge room with a plastic shower to the side that leaked water everywhere. I remember also sitting in a beautiful square and having raclette cheese that was heated in a special machine, and then there was a hot plate where you grilled meats and a bowl of potatoes was served that you could dip in the cheese. It is one of those memories you hang onto forever, a year after our marriage, the light of summer draped over the tables with the cheese contraptions, the wine, the balmy July evening.
The Gilet Jeunes this afternoon are out , demonstrating peacefully, singing songs. The police are out in force barricading most of the main streets but I slip through a side one and by evening I've found the heart of Bordeaux, cobblestoned tiny streets, cafes and restaurants spilling out onto the sidewalks. I choose a 19.90 euro special. A salad nicoise with plump black olives, tiny green beans, baby yellow potatoes and tuna; duck breast slices with an apple sauce, homemade chips and a creme brulee flavoured with lavendar. I'm the only female alone again but the city is vibrant, the streets crowded, the light slowing gently to darkness, the whole street glowing. I had looked to find where the husband and I had eaten thirty years ago, but couldn't see anything similar.
I breakfast early as I'm on the move again to #Toulouse. I breakfast at a lovely old art nouveau cafe,a cafe noissette, croissant and the free chocolate that the French generously give you. A group of Australians sit next to me, rowdy and loud. None of them even try to speak French. I pretend I'm French, order with my best accent and escape.
It's Sunday and I keep forgetting what it's like arriving in towns on the holy day. Toulouse is deserted. My hotel is obscured by roadworks but inside it's tastefully decorated. I go in search of food and end up walking in the wrong direction. I end up at an Italian restaurant in desperation, am seated next to a rotund man who is eating a large mound of steak tartare, raw and bloody, he is drinking a beer and sweating and keeps looking over at me. I'm too hungry to move on, so I order eggplant parmigiana and eat quickly so I can escape his observation and the unsettling redness of the raw steak.
Toulouse is called the Pink city, la vieille rose, but today the dull skies tone it to an overall greyness. The next day I find a cafe within the arcaded square. The city is transformed to aliveness. The arcade ceilings are covered with aeronautical happenings that Toulouse is famous for. I have plans to go to the markets and galleries but Monday is rest day for both. Rather than the description of the pink city, I call it the Violet city. Everywhere there are violet shops, lemonade, beer, liquors, syrup, perfume, soaps, hand creams. Old fashioned lolly shops, full of antique violet tins, violet flavoured lollies, slabs of violet nougat studded with almonds, candied violets and the famous violet shortbread. I have a thing for violets, for their shy hideaway existence beneath other plants, peeking out from their big heart shaped leaves, perfuming the air subtly with their fragrance.
I discover that one Museum is open, the Musee des Augustins, a gothic style convent built in 1309 and opened as a museum in 1793, making it one of the oldest in France. I go because I've heard it has a large number of works by it's famous artist, Toulouse-Lautrec, but that section is closed for renovations. It's still beautiful wandering it's halls and there's an Instragrammers spot of choice where sections of Romanesque capitals are displayed on multi coloured columns of rust, orange, turquoise, red and azure with modernists lamps lighting them. I wait for a break in the human traffic so I can photograph the empty space. Lunch is good, a wonderful thyme flavoured Quiche Lorraine in a cute little cafe near the river that I have made sure I've found before I leave. It's brown and fast flowing and wasn't really worth the walk. And so another city has been circumnavigated briefly. Tomorrow another.
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