80 Years Later, Still A Reason To Celebrate

We were luckily scheduled to dock late afternoon in Libourne on the day of their riverside celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the town.

After dinner, Carol, Don, Jennifer and I decided to walk around the town a bit.  The embankment where the ship docked had an 80th liberation celebration and it was a hit.

(Editor: Nice rhyme.

Writer: My name is Glen. I am a poet. I wrote this poem just to show it.)

There were food trucks (alas no oysters, but there were crepes made at a food truck), a DJ spinning American pop hits from the 60s-80s, people dancing.  The place was crowded with mostly local folks.  Everyone was happy, so we were too.

At the same time, it was French jazz night on the ship in the lounge.  So whilst many Americans stayed on the ship to hear French music, the French townspeople of Libourne stayed on the embankment to hear American pop music.  (There probably were a few British pop songs played, but not many).

It was such a cool sight to see.

We then walked up to the bridge and crossed halfway.  I wish now that I had taken some more pictures of the celebration.  I was taken with the scene that I only took two, and the pics was mostly of the boat.

There also were placards up with information about people, including Jews, who were captured in the town and murdered by Nazis.

We headed to the other side of the party, until we came to the last remaining two towers and one gate in the city.  Starting in 1269, the city was surrounded by defensive walls.  In 1794, most of the towers and gates were torn down.

There were originally nine gates and two barbicans for each gate.  The pair called "The Grand Port Tower" (or "Tour du Grand Port") were named Tour Richard and Tour Barre.  At night (and in the day) they were a stirring sight.

The gate between the

two tours.  That's a 16th

century house behind

the 21st century car.

I ended up getting a crepe

at the restaurant on our

second night in Libourne.

Tour Richard.  ("Tower

Richard" for those of

us bad at French.)

We wandered a bit more, then I stopped back at the crepe food truck for. . .a nutella crepe of course.  The crepe I ever had was in Bayeux in 2013.  The second best was this one.

All in all, the evening was a delight.