Bordeaux walking tour

It was interesting to learn a bit about Bordeaux. We are English speakers, and most of the tour occurred in French, so we missed out on a lot of information, but did learn new things. Our tour guide was very nice, and she didn’t end the hour even though it was pouring rain.

It rained a lot on this tour but we persevered. The biggest problem though was that the tour was bilingual and the tour leader's delivery was very rapid. The result was that it was hard to stay focused enough to absorb what was being said. My conclusion: avoid bilingual tours where possible.

Walked to all major sites. Guide didn't provide historical overview, gave lots of peripheral information, chatted overly long with a couple of the visitors, knew his stuff but the tour was more like an interior monologue on items of interest to the guide than a good introduction to Bordeaux's history and architecture. Guide was a last-minute sub, but still... Very good tourism office, helpful and friendly staff, great materials on hand and a good gift shop. But as a fellow visitor on the tour said, one could do just as well walking around with the guidebook as having this particular guide.

Unfortunately, the scheduled guide did not appear so we had to wait 45 min for a replacement, who was evidently unenthusiastic and very repetitive. Also, the fact that the tour was in both French and English meant a lot of time wasted waiting around. The group was too large, making it difficult to hear the guide who often had his back to us.