Visiting Bordeaux, France

I assume you mean the Bordeaux Region and not the city of Bordeaux. If you're just visiting the city then I'd ditch the car. The Museum of Aquitine was one of my favourite museums I've ever visited. I'm not interested in the wine country so I can't be helpful with that except I highly recommend an overnight in St Emilion. The Dordogne region is outstanding, but with only four days it may not be worthwhile.

Hi Bruce,

As a serious wine connoisseur I visit Bordeaux often. Some must see places are:

• Cite du Vin
  • Arcachon
  • Saint-Emilion (Underground Saint-Emilion is a must do tour)
  • Bassins de Lumieries

If you have a car getting to all of these will be easy. Make sure your hotel has parking. It can be hard to come by in Bordeaux.

If you are interested in wine I would recommend that you visit Sauvistication: https://sauvistication.com/planning-chateaux-visits/. It outlines some itineraries for visiting wineries. The website teaches people how to navigate Bordeaux’s wine scene, which can be complicated.

Safe Travels

If your interesting in visiting wineries take a look at the Wine Cellar Insider. It has the most detail of any Bordeaux oriented website.
Sauvistication and Lonely Planet are also useful resources for tourism purposes.

I'd recommend you avoid two blogs: Lost in Bordeaux and Bordeaux Travel Guide. They are essentially the same thing, both try to make a buck off of you by trying to get you to book things through affiliate programs or by clicking on ads. A lot of the wineries they recommend are not ones you should be visiting.

Hi Brucerburke1,
Bordeaux is a beautiful city! Definitely take a few days to explore the city itself. There is so much to see. I'd suggest:
1) Musée d'Aquitaine is fantastic (as mentioned above)
2) Les Bassins des Lumières
3) Cité du Vin
4) Food tour with Devour Tours

Check out the Old Town/St. Pierre neighborhood as well as Chartrons.

Contrary to other(s) opinion, I would suggest looking at the blog Lost in Bordeaux (www.lostinbordeaux.com) as it is incredibly useful when you are trying to figure out events happening during the dates you are visiting. She (I think her name is Ira) puts out her monthly round up about a month ahead of time (so if you are going in June, look at her blog in May.) I use it often as do many locals to find out events and happenings in and around Bordeaux.

Since we live in Bordeaux, I'm not well versed on the best places to stay so I'll leave hotel recs to others more knowledgable.

If you want to venture further afield, I'd suggest visits to:
1) Archachon (cute seaside, art deco town)
2) St. Émilion (picture perfect setting even if you aren't in to wine. Great food, Monolithic church, etc.)

With 4 days, this should occupy all of your time. Happy to offer any specific recommendations should you wish. Enjoy your visit!

Thank you so much everyone. Feel free to add more thoughts !

Wine lovers also should not miss the Musée du Vin et du Négoce de Bordeaux. It's an entirely different experience from the Cité du Vin. And if you really love wine, in addition to the other excellent suggestions above, you'll want to visit some châteaux. Also please visit the wine merchants in Saint-Emilion, as many offer complimentary tastings.

For the city of Bordeaux, I have three recommendations. We have stayed at the. 4 Soeurs hotel two times and have found it very agreeable. Next-door is a restaurant called Entrocote queeryou could have an absolute delicious steak, potatoes and salad dinner for €23! From something like 7 AM to something like 2:30 p.m. chez Jean mi serves fresh oysters (best I’ve ever had) wine, another seafood delights. I highly recommend both of these restaurants. And I agree with the two previous posters about the Museum of Aquitaine. Wonderful museum.