Today is the feast day of St Severinus or Seurin of Bordeaux Patron of Bordeaux. 10 facts about Bordeaux.
The name Bordeaux means “Beside the Waters”. The city is nicknamed known as the "Pearl of Aquitaine".
The first settlers in the area are believed to be a Celtic tribe called the Bituriges Vivisci, who named their town “Burdigala”. The Romans ruled here for a while and built the Palais Gallien, a huge amphitheatre which could seat 17,000 people. Only a small portion of the original structure remains.
Thanks to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry Plantagenet, who became King Henry II of England, Bordeaux was part of England for 300 years. Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399, was born at the Archbishop's Palace of Bordeaux. It became part of France in 1453 after the Battle of Castillon.
Bordeaux is famous for its wines. Its fame as a Wine growing region was helped by the English, who developed a taste for the wines during Henry and Eleanor’s time. Today, Bordeaux has 287,000 acres of vineyards, 10,000 wine producing estates. The city is home to the world's biggest wine fair, Vinexpo. 85% of Bordeaux's wine production is red wine, but that wasn’t always the case. Until the 1970s 80% of the wine produced there was white. The change is at least partly down to a frost in 1956 that killed off many white grape vines, with many growers choosing to replant with red Grapes.
The wine industry is also the origin of a signature pastry in the city called the canelé. This sweet treat has a crunchy exterior with a soft, custardy centre flavoured with Vanilla and Rum. Bordeaux winemakers used to use Egg whites to clarify their wines, a process known as fining. This left them with a surfeit of egg yolks. Nuns at the Annonciades convent thought it would be a shame to waste them, so they came up with a recipe using the leftover yolks, along with Flour, Sugar, and vanilla.
Bordeaux is home to the longest shopping street in Europe, Rue Sainte-Catherine, over 1,2km long, and the largest city square in Europe, the Place des Quinconces, into which 18 football fields would fit. A feature of the square is a monument to the Girondins, made up of bronze Horses and fountains. It allegedly survived the second world war because the Nazis were sufficiently impressed with it that they decided not to melt it down to make bullets.
The world’s largest reflecting pool is here, too, the Miroir d’eau which covers an area of 3,450 square metres. Not only that, but it has a water system that changes from a 2cm deep layer of Water to a fine fog every 15 minutes.
For a while in the 18th century, all the buildings in Bordeaux were painted Blue. This was because the Marquis de Tourny, who was responsible for much of Bordeaux's urban planning, issued a decree to that effect in 1767. Why? You might ask. Because he believed the colour blue repelled Mosquitoes, a problem in the marshy countryside at that time.
Talking of urban planning, parallel streets in Bordeaux are traditionally named in a way that connects them. For example, "Rue du Loup" (Wolf Street) runs parallel to "Rue de la Brebis" (Sheep Street), and "Rue du Puits" (Well Street) is next to "Rue de la Corde" (Rope Street).
There is a vast network of underground tunnels and chambers, some dating back to the Middle Ages. Originally dug to extract limestone for building the city, they were known as "carrières" or quarries. Since then, they have been used for various purposes from connecting wine cellars, allowing merchants to move wine without being seen, to hiding places and venues for resistance fighters during World War II.
