On the first full day of the cruise, we docked at Blaye, which was a key town for protecting the city of Bordeaux from invasion.
Our first activity was a bus tour of the route of the Corniche Fleurie. A bus trip isn’t my favorite way to sightsee – in fact, on the list of 99 ways to sightsee, it’s probably around 95 on the list. But, they have to move a lot of people, and more of the morning was spent walking through a UNESCO World Heritage site, so the bus trip was fine.
We went along the Route de la Corniche Fleurie.
Even I can translate the first three words (“route of the” for those of you who are even worse at French than I am).
The last two words mean “Flowery Corniche,” but Corniche Fleurie is best known in North America as a key role player for the Montreal Canadiens (“Les Habitants”) during their great run of Stanley Cups from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s when they won ten Stanley Cups in less than 15 years.
While the scrappy defenseman was far from the best player on the team those years, it’s no coincidence that the run of Stanley Cups during that part of Montreal dynasty started when Fleurie joined the team and ended when he retired. He was nicknamed “le ciment qui a soudé l'équipe” or literally “the glue that held the team together.”
His six word nickname still holds the North American sports record in the category of "most words in a nickname."
(Editor: I googled this, and you just spent three paragraphs making up a fake French-Canadian hockey player, including some chunk of a back story with a fake nickname that you translated to French with the help of, well, Google translate. How could you?
Writer: I’m sorry, but if your mind doesn’t immediately leap to “sounds like a former French-Canadian hockey player who was not a star but crucial in winning Stanley Cups,” I don’t know if you even have a mind!
Still the Writer: Also, why are they the Canadiens with an “e” but everyone else in the country are Canadians with an “a?”
Editor: Well, they’re French, you know.)
We went along the Dordogne River, head swiveling between the limestone cliffs on our left and the river/Gironde Estuary on our right. It’s a beautiful combination of limestone, river, and grapevines, with some large houses and small fishing huts thrown in for good measure.
Johanna served as our fantastic guide, as she pointed out many interesting aspects of the area, and even put up with Don’s incessant questions. To be fair to Don, his questions are interesting and often times questions I wish I had thought to ask (hopefully he doesn’t read this because it will only encourage him).
We made one stop along a cliff high above the river, affording us beautiful views across the to Left Bank (yes, we were on the Right Bank for this stop).
The tour really became interesting when we arrived back at the riverside Citadel of Blaye, where we disembarked the bus and proceeded to invade the citadel.
The fortress of Blaye was built in the 17th century by Vauban, famous engineer of King Louis XIV. This citadel, which overlooks the Gironde estuary, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and deservedly so, as it is both imposing and majestic.
From Wikipedia:
“Sébastien Le Prestre, seigneur de Vauban, later styling himself as the marquis de Vauban (15 May 1633 – 30 March 1707), commonly referred to as Vauban, was a French military engineer and Marshal of France who worked under Louis XIV. He is generally considered the greatest engineer of his time, and one of the most important in European military history.
“His principles for fortifications were widely used for nearly 100 years, while aspects of his offensive tactics remained in use until the mid-twentieth century.”
Vauban did NOT play for the Montreal hockey team, but he did design or supervise the building of over 300 fortifications throughout France. His fortification design, which closely followed Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches from 200 years earlier, did away with blind spots that allowed invaders to break into fortifications.
(I’m not implying that Vauban used da Vinci’s work – the Italian genius did not publish many of his sketches. . .it is more likely that Vauban got to the same place that da Vinci did because, as the kids say, genius recognizes genius.)
Anyhow, Johanna expertly led us all the way through the large fortress. We had an ear bud connected to a wireless receiver so we could hear what she was saying. Mine kept falling out of my ear, but the group was small enough and her voice strong enough that I could hear her anyhow.
Built 50 km upstream from the city of Bordeaux to protect it from enemy attacks. This defensive system consisted of three forts: the Citadel of Blaye, Fort Pâté (located on Île Pâté in the middle of the estuary) and Fort Médoc in Cussac-Fort-Médoc.
(Only the French would have a Fort named “Pâté” which is now illegal in California and New York City. I guess having the three fortifications was to force an invading force to spread themselves too thin.”)
(Editor: Alright, that’s the worst of all, combining “Pâté” with “spread too thin!”
Writer: My faithful readers are smart, but I do wonder how many had to go back and re-read it again because they initially missed the joke?)
It would be difficult to successfully lay siege to the fortress, as water was plenty and it was quite spread out, so livestock could be raised and food grown as well.
There are five series of walls within the citadel, so taking the outer section meant invaders would have had to get through four more well-designed rings of the fort. The citadel of Blaye preserves intact the defense system put in place by Vauban with its ramparts, its gates and its underground passages as well as the buildings necessary for the proper functioning of a garrison: former convent, prison, barracks, powder magazine, and more.
We finished up with a grand view of the estuary, overlooking our ship.
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