It was there that we rented and were introduced to our car, with which we would subsequently share many adventures!
We drove in. We found the streets to be somewhat narrow! Sharon would become the primary and quite heroical negotiator of these tight spaces.
We found our flat, and, after much travail, a parking space. Those open windows in the second picture are the ones at which Spencer is standing in the first.
That was Saturday. Sunday was church, at one of Spencer's most challenging and most favourite wards.
Except that no one was there! The building was being renovated.
Spencer got us to Bordeaux' second chapel. Nix!
Old people were, and would have remained, flummoxed. Young people got on line—young people figured out how to get on line!—and found out where what was turning out to be stake conference was taking place.
What wracking of the nerves. What flying colours!
Eventually, then, we made it.
This was a challenging episode, containing many lessons and mercies. Ask us.
From there, after that, we had a lovely day in this beautiful old city.
We walked to the extensive, charmingly unkempt botanical gardens. We went to the imposing Gerondin monument, where we were privileged to witness an entertaining dog fight. We visited the comparatively modest St. Louis' church, in which a group of formally dressed musicians were practicing the James Bond theme.
We visited the exquisite Notre Dame church, simple, rounded and Romanesque, with this luminous pool of light on its chaste stone floor.
We moved on to majestic St. Andrew's, and its adjacent, 233 step bell tower.
We could see for miles and miles.
We passed through streets and squares and parks. Much grist for the urban planning and architectural mills, and for the young person dedicating himself to the study thereof.
This weekend was a wine festival (Bordeaux, after all; and why not?!), which was going on in these specific places, but also generally, and city wide. We navigated through all that, and enjoyed seeing people enjoying themselves.
We came, finally, to the city's celebrated miroir d'eau. We very much remembered Spencer's accounts, and of this place having provided respite and recreation and comfort to the missionaries, all that time ago. Spencer, obviously, remembered it more ardently than that.
To the naked eye, this is a favourably placed and well maintained water feature.
Also, magic.
