Top 25 Bordeaux Attractions

Stand­ing on the bend of the Garonne, Bor­deaux is called the city of the moon. Back in the 1st cen­tu­ry AD, at the behest of Cae­sar, it became the cap­i­tal of Aquitaine, and remains so to this day. Mil­lions of tourists come here to admire the charm of French Provence, taste deli­cious dish­es and walk along the pic­turesque streets.

What to do in Bordeaux

The city is famous no less than the French cap­i­tal. Entire neigh­bor­hoods of Bor­deaux with streets and squares are includ­ed in the UNESCO her­itage list as inter­na­tion­al val­ues. The res­i­dents them­selves care­ful­ly pre­serve the mon­u­ments of their past, and the city has strict laws.

Archi­tec­ture lovers come here to look at the Old Town with basil­i­cas and cathe­drals, take a leisure­ly walk along the nar­row stone streets, take pic­tures against the back­drop of palaces and tow­ers.

Cozy restau­rants with deli­cious nation­al cui­sine attract roman­tics and dream­ers. Art con­nois­seurs vis­it count­less muse­ums, art gal­leries, exhi­bi­tions and mon­u­ments to var­i­ous events that are count­less in the city.

Ath­letes and fam­i­lies with chil­dren will enjoy walk­ing along the embank­ments, engag­ing in active water sports, vis­it­ing zoos, dol­phi­nar­i­ums and amuse­ment parks.

religious buildings

Cathedral Saint André

The city’s cathe­dral was built in hon­or of St. Andrew. In the Ortho­dox tra­di­tion, it is cus­tom­ary to call him the First-Called, since he is the first whom Christ called after him.

The build­ing was erect­ed in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages on the site of the lost shrine of the 9th cen­tu­ry, but after two hun­dred years the tem­ple began to col­lapse. In 1130, a nave was added to the cathe­dral and the north por­tal Porte Royale was added. The ped­i­ment was dec­o­rat­ed with sculp­tures depict­ing scenes of the Last Judg­ment. The dec­o­ra­tion of the new­ly added parts of the cathe­dral was strict­ly mon­i­tored by Bish­op Geof­froy Lonou, so the nave and the por­tal were made in accor­dance with the Angevin Goth­ic style.

The cathe­dral was recon­struct­ed sev­er­al times, acquir­ing more and more mod­ern fea­tures. Nev­er­the­less, the mas­ters tried not to mix Goth­ic with oth­er styl­is­tic solu­tions.

Church of Our Lady

In anoth­er way, it is called Notre Dame in Bor­deaux. The church was built at the begin­ning of the 18th cen­tu­ry in the Baroque style. From the out­side, the build­ing real­ly resem­bles one of the main attrac­tions of France — Notre Dame Cathe­dral.

The facade is rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with sculp­tur­al com­po­si­tions and bas-reliefs. The image of the Vir­gin Mary flaunts in a fig­ured stained-glass win­dow. Inside there are arched gal­leries, on the walls of the church there are ele­gant fres­coes made by mas­ters in the 18th-19th cen­turies.

Basilica of Saint Serin

The cathe­dral is named after the saint who was the patron saint of the city. Dur­ing his life­time, he was the fourth bish­op of Bor­deaux. The build­ing was erect­ed in the 6th cen­tu­ry, con­se­crat­ed sev­er­al times, in par­tic­u­lar, after restora­tion in the 9th cen­tu­ry, the build­ing was destroyed by the inva­sion of the Nor­mans. Recon­struc­tion was car­ried out in sev­er­al stages over two cen­turies.

It was in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages that the church was dec­o­rat­ed with neo-Goth­ic ele­ments — stuc­co and paint­ings. Today, the Basil­i­ca of Saint Serin attracts with its muse­um. The crypt (under­ground part) con­tains fres­coes, mar­ble sar­copha­gi, the ash­es of the patron saint of Bor­deaux, cap­i­tals, amphorae and the horn of the knight Roland.

Church of the Holy Cross

The locals call it the Church of the Holy Cross. Con­struc­tion was com­plet­ed in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages. A shrine was erect­ed next to the monastery, the age of which has not been estab­lished.

The first men­tion of the cathe­dral in offi­cial sources was asso­ci­at­ed with the death of Saint Mom­molen. Dur­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion, the church housed not ware­house sup­plies, as was com­mon, but med­ical wards. The insti­tu­tion received the sta­tus of an Ortho­dox church only in the 19th cen­tu­ry, and before that it also func­tioned as a school of fine arts.

Restora­tion was car­ried out by Paul Aba­di — he gave sym­me­try to the appear­ance of the shrine. The Church of the Holy Cross hosts con­certs of clas­si­cal and organ music due to the good acoustic char­ac­ter­is­tics of the build­ing.

Basilica Saint Michel

The Cathe­dral of Saint Michael stands on Place Menard near the Pont du Pierre. The basil­i­ca was not erect­ed imme­di­ate­ly — the con­struc­tion dragged on for two cen­turies. The build­ing was designed by J. Leba.

Saint Michel is designed in an unusu­al styl­is­tic solu­tion “flam­ing goth­ic”. Behind the main build­ing is a bell tow­er, the cen­tral tow­er of which is over 100 meters long. This is one of the tallest tem­ple struc­tures in the world.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral

The Catholic Cathe­dral, named after Saint Peter, was built in Bor­deaux in the 19th cen­tu­ry on the site of a destroyed church. The facade of the build­ing is made in the Goth­ic style: the cen­tral por­tal is equipped with three arch­es, dec­o­rat­ed with sculp­tur­al com­po­si­tions. Among them are angels, prophets, plant motifs. In the cen­tral win­dow — the image of the Vir­gin.

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the cathe­dral there are three chapels, one of which is dec­o­rat­ed with a gild­ed wood­en sculp­ture of St. Paul, the oth­er two — stat­ues of God the Father and St. Peter.

architectural landmarks

Grosse Cloche Tower

In the Mid­dle Ages, the tow­er was part of the city’s defen­sive struc­tures. Accord­ing to offi­cial data, it was built in the 15th cen­tu­ry on the site of the lost gate that stood at the entrance to Bor­deaux. Gross Klosh is con­sid­ered a sym­bol of the city — it is not for noth­ing that it is depict­ed on its coat of arms.

The build­ing acquired its cur­rent appear­ance in the 18th cen­tu­ry, when the cone-shaped roofs were com­plet­ed. On the north side, the facade is dec­o­rat­ed with fig­ures of myth­i­cal gar­goyles, in the cen­ter there is an astro­nom­i­cal clock, by which the towns­peo­ple check the time.

Exchange Square

The area is locat­ed near the Garonne embank­ment. All its build­ings are designed in a sin­gle baroque archi­tec­tur­al style, which took shape in the 18th cen­tu­ry. The square was designed by the archi­tect A.Zh. Gabriel. It hous­es the Cus­toms Muse­um and the Exchange Palace — both build­ings over­look the Foun­tain of Mir­rors. An unusu­al struc­ture is a flat sur­face that is com­plete­ly flood­ed with water.

water mirror

The main attrac­tion of Birzhe­vaya Square and its main pride. Atom­iz­ers built into the sur­face turn water jets into small droplets that actu­al­ly dis­solve in the air. Due to this effect, it seems that the parade ground is immersed in a fog­gy haze. The sur­face of the Mir­ror reflects the sculp­tures of Mer­cury and Min­er­va, locat­ed on the facade of the ancient Ferm Palace.

Bridge of Jacques Chaban-Delmas

The bridge, named after the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of France, spans the Garonne Riv­er, which flows through the cen­ter of the city. It was built in 2013. The grand open­ing took place not only in front of the local pub­lic, but also with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of gov­ern­ment offi­cials — the Pres­i­dent of France and the may­or of the city.

The design is equipped with an ele­va­tor that is able to lift pas­sen­gers to almost 50 meters in height. The Cha­ban-Del­mas bridge is a draw­bridge. Once every few days, tourists and locals admire this spec­ta­cle.

Pe-Berland Tower

The build­ing is locat­ed on the square, which bears the same name. The tow­er was built in hon­or of Arch­bish­op Berlan, who at one time found­ed a high­er edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion for stu­dents from poor fam­i­lies. The Pe-Berland build­ing is part of the Saint André cathe­dral ensem­ble, although it is locat­ed far from it. The tow­er was built in the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tu­ry, a lit­tle lat­er it was crowned with an 8‑ton bell.

Port of Cayo

There are two ver­sions regard­ing the ori­gin of the name of the port and the gate of the same name. Accord­ing to the first, the word came from the Gas­con lan­guage and means “cob­ble­stone” in trans­la­tion. Accord­ing to the sec­ond, this is the name of an aris­to­crat­ic fam­i­ly that once lived in Bor­deaux. The port and gate are locat­ed near the Cathe­dral of St. Andrew. They were built as a sign of the tri­umph of King Charles VIII at the bat­tle of Forno­vo.

Museums

“City of Wine”

Where, if not in Bor­deaux, to get acquaint­ed with every­thing relat­ed to wine and the his­to­ry of this drink? The region in France is famous for its exquis­ite aper­i­tif. “City of Wine” is a muse­um, the expo­si­tions of which occu­py the area of ​​a mod­ern build­ing. The locals call it the “Wine Guggen­heim”. This mec­ca for true gourmets and con­nois­seurs of the noble drink was opened in 2016.

Museum of Fine Arts

The muse­um build­ing itself is already a work of art, not to men­tion its con­tents. The vault was opened at the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry for vis­its. At that time, the main col­lec­tion of the muse­um con­sist­ed of works by Euro­pean painters of the 15th-20th cen­turies.

Many paint­ings were con­fis­cat­ed from the pop­u­la­tion dur­ing the Napoleon­ic Wars, oth­ers were donat­ed by pri­vate col­lec­tors. Par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able exhibits are the works of Tit­ian, Veronese, Renoir, Rubens.

Museum of Wine and Wine Trade

Accord­ing to all the laws of log­ic, it should have appeared in Bor­deaux one of the very first, but it was opened already in the 2000s. The ini­tia­tive to cre­ate this muse­um belonged to the Asso­ci­a­tion of His­tor­i­cal Wine­mak­ing. Accord­ing to their idea, the col­lec­tion was to be locat­ed in a build­ing where mer­chants and mer­chants who sold the noble drink for Louis XV had pre­vi­ous­ly lived.

Vis­i­tors to the wine muse­um will learn about how dif­fer­ent vari­eties were cre­at­ed, how vine­yards were plant­ed, and fin­ished prod­ucts were shipped. Many peo­ple like that here you can taste “exhibits”.

Museum of Aquitaine

The muse­um was opened in the 18th cen­tu­ry, and most of its col­lec­tion con­sist­ed of stone arti­facts that have been pre­served since the hey­day of the Roman Empire. Many exhibits were found in the vicin­i­ty of Bor­deaux. Since the mid­dle of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the muse­um has turned into an ethno­graph­ic muse­um.

It has exist­ed in its cur­rent form since the 1980s. Today the muse­um build­ing occu­pies an area of ​​about 5,000 square meters, on which more than 70,000 exhibits are con­cen­trat­ed.

Modern Art Museum

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the muse­um build­ing housed a colo­nial ware­house. Today, only the arched facade of the build­ing and the roof ter­race remind of the trad­ing past. The first muse­um expo­si­tion was opened here after the author­i­ties man­aged to buy the build­ing from a pri­vate entre­pre­neur in the 60s of the last cen­tu­ry.

Today the muse­um keeps one of the rich­est col­lec­tions among all that is in Bor­deaux. These are paint­ings by avant-garde artists, mod­ern achieve­ments of sci­en­tists in the field of tech­nol­o­gy and elec­tron­ics. After view­ing the exhi­bi­tions, vis­i­tors can sit in the cafe or on the pic­turesque rooftop ter­race.

Museum of the Sea and the Navy

At the end of June 2019, the Muse­um of the Sea and the Navy was opened in Bor­deaux. His col­lec­tion is locat­ed on an impres­sive area of ​​13,000 square meters. The expo­si­tion is devot­ed to mar­itime trans­port and the prob­lems of mod­ern ecol­o­gy. The idea of ​​cre­at­ing a muse­um came up with the enthu­si­ast Nor­bert Fraden. From child­hood, he dreamed of trav­el­ing and was able to make his dreams come true, albeit in such an unob­vi­ous way.

In the Muse­um of the Sea, vis­i­tors will see mod­els of the largest ships not only of French ori­gin. So, one of the main val­ues ​​of the local trea­sury is the Titan­ic mod­el.

National Customs Museum

The muse­um is locat­ed on Birzhe­vaya Square and was opened in the 80s of the last cen­tu­ry. Today it boasts an impres­sive col­lec­tion of exhibits — about 12,000. Many of them are rare archae­o­log­i­cal finds, in par­tic­u­lar, a dinosaur egg, ivory. Most of the expo­si­tion is made up of weapons, uni­forms, mod­els of mer­chant ships, pre­cious stones and prod­ucts, and sculp­tures.

Museum of Decorative Arts and Design

One of the few muse­ums locat­ed in the ancient region of the city — Aquitaine. After the Hun­dred Years War, it was hand­ed over to France along with dilap­i­dat­ed build­ings. The build­ing that hous­es the muse­um today already exist­ed at that time.

The vault itself was found­ed at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry. The col­lec­tion was col­lect­ed specif­i­cal­ly in order to show vis­i­tors objects of dec­o­ra­tive and applied art: engrav­ings, minia­tures, stat­ues, dish­es, ceram­ics, jew­el­ry, house­hold items. Many of the pre­sent­ed faience and porce­lain exhibits were made by French crafts­men.

Interesting places

submarine base

The lay­ing of the base was car­ried out long before the start of the Sec­ond World War. Accord­ing to his­tor­i­cal data, the gov­ern­ment agreed with Hitler that Ital­ian and Ger­man sub­marines would be sta­tioned here. The base was reli­ably pro­tect­ed from bomb­ing, so dur­ing the air raids, almost no ship was dam­aged. Today, an exhi­bi­tion cen­ter is locat­ed on its vast area.

Garden Public

The city’s pub­lic park was laid out in the 18th cen­tu­ry and designed by the roy­al archi­tect Ange Jacques Gabriel. After the rev­o­lu­tion, the gar­den was aban­doned, the flower beds were destroyed. Restora­tion began at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry. At that moment, design­er Fishe took over the design. Accord­ing to his idea, the pub­lic gar­den was to acquire an Eng­lish land­scape style.

The area of ​​the park is 14 hectares, in its north­ern part there is a small pond with bridges and an island, there is a carousel. All that reminds of the for­mer Pub­lic is the old forged gates.

Garage “Modern”

This is a work­shop that resem­bles a real muse­um. You can repair a car or a motor­cy­cle there, and at the same time admire the unique­ly equipped room.

The place is quite live­ly due to the pres­ence of a cafe right at the entrance — it is man­aged by the own­er of the garage her­self. This is the only work­shop in Europe whose walls are dec­o­rat­ed not with nuts and screw­drivers, but with paint­ings by Kandin­sky.

Institute of Culture Bernard Magre

Château Labot­tière was once home to the broth­ers Antoine and Jacques Labot­tière. They had a small busi­ness in Bor­deaux — both were engaged in print­ing, and at the same time vine­yard cul­ti­va­tion. They built a new build­ing in 1773, turn­ing it into a neo­clas­si­cal hotel.

After the death of the Labot­tiers, the man­sion was pur­chased by a Dutch­man named Bers. He rent­ed it to an entre­pre­neur who opened an enter­tain­ment facil­i­ty in this place. Bernard Magrez became the own­er of the chateau about 15 years ago. The cas­tle was restored by him, and lat­er it housed the Insti­tute of Cul­ture. Today, this place often hosts exhi­bi­tions of artists who adhere to con­tem­po­rary art.

Bordeaux forest

A small arti­fi­cial­ly plant­ed for­est is locat­ed on the shore of the lake of the same name. In fact, this is an open-air arbore­tum with free access. Var­i­ous trees grow on its ter­ri­to­ry — from chest­nuts to larch­es and pines.

For vis­i­tors with chil­dren, there are spe­cial play­grounds with places for recre­ation and enter­tain­ment. The high­light of the Bor­deaux For­est is the flower park, which was cre­at­ed specif­i­cal­ly for the exhi­bi­tion in the 90s. Among the plants there are peonies, iris­es and rhodo­den­drons.