Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Bordeaux
From the Golden Triangle to the Cité du Vin in six hours
The opera house, the Girondins' monument, the public garden, the wine merchants' quarter and the wine museum on the river.
In the eighteenth century the wine trade paid for a new Bordeaux of avenues, squares and an opera house, and the merchants who shipped the wine lived and stored it along the quays of the Chartrons. This route follows the money north, from the Grand Théâtre through the Chartrons to the Cité du Vin, where the trade tells its own story. The last stretch is a short ride on tram B along the river.
The route, stop by stop
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Grand Théâtre
Victor Louis's theatre of 1780, its portico lined with twelve columns carrying statues of nine muses and three goddesses. Guided tours show the blue and gold auditorium when the opera is not rehearsing.
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Monument aux Girondins
A column and bronze fountains built between 1894 and 1902 on the Esplanade des Quinconces, one of the largest squares in Europe. It honours the Girondin deputies executed in the Terror.
15 min here Walk here → -
Jardin Public
Laid out in 1746 under the intendant Tourny and remade as an English landscape garden in 1856, with a pond, a botanical garden and the natural history museum. Free.
30 min here Walk here → -
Halle des Chartrons
The iron market hall at the centre of the Chartrons, the old quarter of the wine merchants. The antique dealers of rue Notre-Dame are a street away.
20 min here Walk here → -
Musée du Vin et du Négoce
A small museum of the wine trade in the vaulted cellars of an eighteenth-century merchant's house on rue Borie. The visit ends with a tasting.
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La Cité du Vin
The wine museum opened in 2016 in a building shaped like wine swirling in a glass, with exhibits on wine around the world. The ticket includes a glass on the eighth-floor belvedere.
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