France - Bordeaux

I actually really like this town. Outside of old town it becomes remarkably normal very quick, but the tourist area is old and rad.
The Intercontinental is perfectly located. It’s considered one of the best hotels in Europe, but it’s regal and old school man.
Our wine tour to st emillion was so much fun. We had a great driver and we ate lunch in the amazing town of st emillion. I would recommend that town to anyone. It’s just like Tuscany. We had a wonderful day, but it was expensive, and wine tasting remains annoying and a bit uncomfortable to me. This place only does private tours so it was like 5 of us in a quiet room for an hour after the same tour you’ve been on a thousand times. Anyway, it was a good day.
St Catherine street was very cool and the second half, away from the main square, is much different as the stores get pretty quirky pretty quickly. At the end, we walked from the arc to the capucins market and we went through what I would describe as little Mogadishu. So it was a weird juxtaposition when walking to an amazingly old seafood and expensive ingredients market in France.
The Chateones market, which may only be on sundays was also pretty rad. They had a wine festival going on while we were there which made it that much better. The famous mirror water feature thing is fine, the kid loved it.
La Tupina dinner was stellar and just old school French fun. Le Brasserie Bordelaise was very good but not as cool a setting as Tupina. Gordon Ramseys Pressoint was great if you are dead inside :)

Notes to self:

-Go somewhere else and get great wine for a quarter of the cost.

-On the way from San Sebastian we stopped for lunch in Biarritz. We found an amazing pizza place and found the beach town to be charming, but pricey!

Intercontinental Bordeaux - Jun 2023

The hallways alone can be The Shinning kind of off putting. The room decor ain’t exactly modern either, but they have everything you want in them including rad showers.
It has a 2 star Gordon Ramsay restaurant in it which we had to try. So elegant and so stuffy and they want that 3rd star, soooooo it was so annoying! Haha
The pool at the hotel is very cool and the spa area is right there with a sauna and a hammam.
The roof top bar is pretty small but it’s still pretty rad and has the most oddly placed hot tub up there.
Breakfast was large and great so make sure that’s included.
We got a family suite and the other room got upgraded to a family suite, which are pretty huge with 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms, one with a tub. In our room both toilet areas were separated from the vanity/shower areas which was weird but fine. There wasn’t a view to speak of but didn’t care as the space was more important.
Btw, the lobby bar is pretty basic, but they cover it with twinkle lights which at night makes it magical.

Notes

-The location of the hotel cannot be beaten. In the middle of the golden triangle and right at the top of Catherine street.