Beautiful Bordeaux
Feeling better. A quick shout-out to friends that made my sick-time in Bordeaux manageable! It’s time to explore something other than the local grocery store a ten minute walk away.
Bordeaux is a refreshing break from the tourism madness of Paris. There are tourists around but it’s more spread out. You get all the charm of small narrow twisting European roads and old buildings. Without all the crowds.
I’m sure it’s touristy in August, but in October it’s quaint.
Mind you, it’s smaller than I thought. Still top 10 in terms of French city size but only 250,000 people. About the same size as Saskatoon, SK or Windsor, ON. Despite that, there is still plenty to do and places to explore.
We managed to find some delicious hipster coffee. I’ve been craving a nice medium roast since we left Canada.
There are two types of people in this world. People who like medium roast single origin coffees and people who like bad coffee.
I kid…I kid…
Coffee depends on you and your taste but so far the rest of the world seems to prefer espresso style coffee. To my dismay when I travel. A testament to the Italian influence on coffee or perhaps Starbucks.
I suppose my contention is that this style of coffee served a purpose back in the day. When getting fresh beans and roasting them in small batches was difficult. It made far more sense to roast on site to preserve the beans for long ocean voyages.
You preserve beans best by roasting as much of the oil out of them as possible. The oil is what makes coffee beans go rancid. This leads us to the famous French Roast and the dark roasts used for espresso style coffee. Both taste like burning to me.
Modern transportation and processing techniques have eliminated the need to do this. I think people cling to Espresso because it’s familiar.
Coffee actually has more flavour profiles than red wine. So long as you don’t roast all the flavour out of it. Get a nice medium road Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia and you may be shocked by the floral or blueberry notes. While a nice coffee from Columbia will likely have a nutty caramel flavour profile.
Back to Bordeaux
Now that you know I’m a bit of a coffee snob, and speaking of wine; let’s talk more about Bordeaux.
Most of us know it to be a port town in a prominent wine growing region. I’ll be back because I missed out on that this time around.
No grape growing takes place within the city limits. But 116,000 hectares surrounding the city produces ~960 million bottles of wine each year!
For comparison the Niagara Region produces the most wine in Canada on 6900 hectares and most of it is ice wine. 🤯
Bordeaux’s dry sunny summers and temperate rainy winters make for ideal grape conditions. Particularly for big red blends, which happen to be my favourite styles. The weather even in October was glorious.
Less well known; they also make whites. The Romans brought viticulture to the area in the mid-first century. After having taken Burdigala (it’s old name) from the a Celtic tribe. It was actually more critical at the time for tin and lead than wine. By the 8th Century the wine industry was booming.
The historic central part of the city is a UNESCO world heritage site. Known for being, “an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble”. Particularly related to it’s 18th century buildings. Of course it also has numerous Gothic and Baroque churches. There is a laundry list of buildings to visit and because I was sick we only made it to a few.
It’s home to the longest pedestrian road in France. Rue Sainte Catherine. Montreal’s main road is of the same name. The core of Bordeaux is very pedestrian friendly.
It’s a city of art and culture. Home to 362 ‘monuments historique.’ Second only to Paris in this department. It even served as the capital of France a handful of times. Most recently during World War 2. Making it well worth a visit in my mind. It’s beautiful and a perfect escape from bustling Paris.
I’m told the new high speed rail service has driven up home prices substantially. In effect Bordeaux has become a cheaper suburb for those working in Paris. It’s still 2 hours by by train but Paris is so expensive now I suppose it’s worth it.
I can’t believe anyone would commute 4 hours a day to avoid Parisian home prices but if it’s on a train it might not be so bad.
Socialist France
I think many people — Americans in particular — view Canada as a socialist nation. To some extent yes, we have public health care and much better maternity leave than the US. There are more support programs. Yet we still share many capitalist traits with our southern friend.
France takes socialism to a whole new level. By far the most socialist place I’ve ever been. The subsidize everything and it shocked me.
They give every newcomer a bike for a year, free of charge.
Even your housekeeper is subsidized!
The work week is 35 hours. Any hours worked beyond this becomes additional paid time off or overtime. Some companies offer this in Canada but not all of them.
Companies are required to give employees subsidized lunches via a restaurant voucher system. If your place of work doesn’t have a cafeteria supplying your food already.
The company has to cover 50% of each ~€9 voucher. Most restaurants must take the vouchers as payment. This means you can accumulate anything you don’t use for other meals too.
However the government is switching over to a new system that prevents abuse. Meaning maximum voucher spend per day will be capped at €19 a day. You soon won’t be able to use them on Sunday’s or bank holidays either.
Bummer.
As I understand it, this leads to a lot of coffee breaks and 90–120 minutes for lunch. Also it would seem, a very high quality of life.
Until recently everything was closed on Sundays. Even now most stores are only open until noon or 1PM on Sunday. It’s a work in progress.
The French seem to be late starters (which suits me) with most people opting to work 9:30AM to 6PM. Or here in Europe. 9:30–18:00.
Child care is available after school until then. It’s also heavily subsidized amounting to some €2 an hour. Schools provide lunch to kids and early drop off child care.
Your employer subsidizes your public transportation costs. Paying for at least 50% of your monthly bus/tram/train pass by law.
You get a mandatory four days off when you get married and two days off for a funeral of a child or spouse. Another day off if your child gets married.
Surprisingly, maternity leave is only 16 weeks but you’re paid your normal salary. You get more time off in Canada but only a fraction of your regular salary. The requirements for qualification are much lower in France. Canadian Maternity leave is tied to employment insurance.
New dads get 11 days off by law and another 6 if you have twins.
There is also something called the “Thirteenth Month Bonus.” This is exactly as it sounds, it’s essentially an extra months salary. It exists for the purposes of paying off your your annual income taxes.
Now if this sounds like utopia, it is. But, they also pay a pretty high tax rate. Don’t quote me on all the numbers but 25% of your income is taxed right off the top of your monthly income. Then at the end of the year you still have to pay more income tax on that and it’s quite high depending on your income.
Many people end up paying as much as 50–70% in taxes but you also get loads of those taxes back via the subsidies. There are always faults to such a system. The amount of paperwork involved here to make sure you take advantage of every subsidy being one. I’m sure people spend hours a week accounting for all of them.
With all the subsidies and government support the whole system discourages high incomes. Another surprising revelation. The CEO of a company might opt to only net about €5000 a month. Or about $7500 CAD. I question that being enough in Paris but like I said before, I don’t know any Parisians.
It’s still a good salary but not what you’d expect in Canada for a C-level role. Mind you, they can probably live quite well on that salary in Bordeaux. The cost of living is dramatically lowered after all the subsidies. Provided you take advantage of as many of them as possible. All in, it was fascinating to learn about such a complex social governing system.
France is a lovely. Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Strasburg and Burgundy have all gained ground on my list of places to visit.
