Bordeaux

The Place de la Bourse is the city's face to the river: an 18th-century royal square laid out open to the Garonne rather than enclosed, with the Palais de la Bourse and the Hôtel des Douanes framing the Fountain of the Three Graces. Across the quay, the Miroir d'Eau spreads a film of water a couple of centimetres deep over granite slabs, so that the facades stand doubled in it, and every so often the water drains away and a cool mist rises in its place. It is at its best after dark, when the square is lit, and on hot afternoons children splash across it.

Behind the Place de la Bourse lies Saint-Pierre, the medieval heart of the centre, a tangle of narrow streets opening onto small squares: the Place du Parlement, ringed by 18th-century facades and café terraces, and the Place Saint-Pierre in front of its church. On the riverside edge of the quarter stands the Porte Cailhau, a turreted 15th-century gate, and a few streets south the Grosse Cloche, the belfry of the old town hall, straddles the Rue Saint-James. In the evening much of the city comes to Saint-Pierre to eat, at the restaurants and wine bars that fill its lanes.

North of Saint-Pierre, the Grand Théâtre fills one side of the Place de la Comédie behind a portico of twelve Corinthian columns, topped by statues of the nine Muses and three goddesses. Its grand staircase inspired Garnier's at the Paris Opéra, and the theatre is still the home of the city's opera and ballet. From the square, the Rue Sainte-Catherine runs about 1.2 km south to the Place de la Victoire, pedestrian from end to end and lined with shops, and the wide open ground of the Esplanade des Quinconces lies a few minutes to the north.

West of the Rue Sainte-Catherine, the Cathédrale Saint-André stands on the Place Pey-Berland, the 13th-century sculpture of its Porte Royale on the north side. Its bell tower stands apart: the Tour Pey-Berland, a 15th-century Gothic tower crowned with a gilded Virgin, whose upper platform looks out over the rooftops to the river. Beside the square, the town hall occupies the Palais Rohan, the 18th-century archbishops' palace, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts fills two wings at the far end of its garden. A few minutes south, on the Cours Pasteur, the Musée d'Aquitaine traces the region from prehistoric carvings to Roman Burdigala and the port city.

Further south, the Basilica of Saint-Michel is a late-Gothic church whose bell tower, the Flèche Saint-Michel, stands apart from it on the square and rises 114 metres over the rooftops. Around them lies Saint-Michel, the centre's multicultural market quarter, where grocers, bakeries and cafés of many origins ring the square and a flea market sets out its stalls among them.

Between the Bourse and Saint-Michel, the Pont de Pierre — the first bridge built across the Garonne in Bordeaux — crosses the river on seventeen arches of brick and stone to La Bastide on the right bank. The walk over gives the whole curve of the left-bank facades, and the riverside park on the far side keeps that view, lit up after dark. In La Bastide, the botanic garden lies a short walk from the bridge, and Darwin, an alternative quarter in a former army barracks, gathers a skatepark, workshops, places to eat and walls of street art.

North of the Esplanade des Quinconces, the Chartrons was the wine merchants' quarter, and their long stone warehouses still line its streets. The Rue Notre-Dame runs through it with antique dealers, cafés and wine bars, and the CAPC shows contemporary art in the vast hall of a 19th-century warehouse. Further north, by the river in the Bacalan district, the Cité du Vin rises in a curving shell of glass and shimmering aluminium, shaped to suggest wine swirling in a glass. Its exhibitions cover the wine cultures of the world rather than Bordeaux alone, and the Belvédère on its top floor looks out over the Garonne and the city.

Bordeaux eats from its river, its ocean and its vineyards, one of the regional kitchens of France. The canelé, a small fluted cake flavoured with rum and vanilla, its crust caramelised dark around a soft, custardy centre, is sold in bakeries across the city. At the Marché des Capucins, the covered market the city calls “the belly of Bordeaux”, the morning ritual is a dozen oysters from the Bassin d'Arcachon with a glass of white wine at a stall counter. The classic main courses are the entrecôte à la bordelaise, rib steak in a sauce of red wine and shallots, and the lamproie à la bordelaise, lamprey stewed in red wine with leeks. The city's wine bars, in Saint-Pierre and the Chartrons above all, pour Bordeaux by the glass.

The vineyards begin at the city's edge, and the rivers divide them. On the Left Bank of the Garonne and the Gironde estuary, Cabernet Sauvignon leads the reds: in the Médoc, whose great estates line the estuary north-west of the city through Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe, and in Pessac-Léognan, the northern end of the Graves, which begins in the southern suburbs; further up the Garonne, Sauternes makes its sweet whites. On the Right Bank of the Dordogne, Merlot leads in Saint-Émilion, Pomerol and Fronsac, around the town of Libourne, and each of these names is an appellation fixed in law. Saint-Émilion, about 40 km east of the city, is a UNESCO-listed medieval village on a limestone hill ringed by vines, with a church carved out of the rock and quarry galleries beneath its streets; regional trains from Saint-Jean reach its station, in the vines below the village, in about 35 minutes. The Médoc is best explored by car or on a guided trip, and most châteaux receive visitors by appointment.

The region's Atlantic coast is close: regional trains from Saint-Jean reach Arcachon, on its tidal bay, in under an hour. Around the Bassin d'Arcachon, oyster ports such as Gujan-Mestras serve oysters at huts on the harbour, and boats cross from Arcachon to Cap Ferret, a pine-covered peninsula with a lighthouse near its tip. South of the town, the Dune du Pilat, Europe's tallest sand dune at more than 100 metres, is climbed for the view over the ocean, the bay and the pine forest of the Landes. North of the bay, on the open ocean, Lacanau is a surf resort.