May 4-5 Air Travel & Bordeaux

What a long, long day!   It's 6:30pm Thur. (9:30am Portland time), we lost part of a day.   Kym & Larry picked us up at 7am Wed.  That's a 26-1/2 hour day!   Yikes!   Feeling OK after a hot shower AND a hot bath after our return from an afternoon of sightseeing.

1st plane was a Boeing B737-900ER for 2-hrs, 2nd was an Airbus A330-900 for 9-hrs, and the 3rd was an Airbus A320 for 1-1/2-hrs.

Here we are going down one of the temporary jetways during PDX's extensive remodel.   Should make it even more beautiful!

Here's a few plane screen shots when on the Salt Lake to Paris leg.

Here's Jan's picture of dawn over Iceland.

Air travel to Europe is a marathon of trying to stay comfortable, trying to get some naps in, walking around the cabin, picking some entertainment to watch, etc.   This is mostly bearable, but when you depart very late from Salt Lake, you become very anxious about your connection in Paris.   Similar to our keystone cops scenarios with the Swiss and French trains last October, we had to hustle through Charles DeGaulle Airport.   Customs was slow, but thank god for short security lines at our Air France terminal.   We just made it!

We arrived in Bordeaux to beautiful 75-deg. sunny weather (you'll see it in the following pictures), and our checked bags made it!  Yay!  We had done some research about how to get from the airport to our hotel near the city center.   We chose to get on a bus, Line-1, and it worked perfectly!   Our stop was just across the street from the hotel!  We checked in and took a very short break and ventured out in the gorgeous weather.   We covered quite a few places on our list.

Here's some pics from coming upon Saint-Andre Cathedrale.  It was built in the Gothic style from the 12th to the 16th centuries.

This neat courtyard was across from the cathedral.

Then, of course, you know I love to find the medieval city gates in any European town I'm in.   Check these two out.  The first is the Grosse Cloche (big bell) built in the 15th century.

This next one is Porte Cailhau built around 1450.

Imposing structures to visitors or invading armies.

On our walk back to the hotel I had to take a picture of a business's street sign.

Walking back we heard an organ playing in one of the many smaller churches in town.   We sat down and listened as the organist was practicing for Sunday's service.

What a fantastic start to our trip!   It was nice to finish this long day with a fun-filled sightseeing afternoon after a grueling air travel marathon.    Looking forward to discovering more of Bordeaux.