Looking out of FRAM’s windows reveals a very unusual sight: We are actually in the heart of a city... Nice old buildings are lined up, people with kids and dogs and bicycles are strolling, jogging, playing, right under our noses! Now that is some change to icebergs and rough seas... Of course everyone ashore is wondering what that big red and white thing is doing at the pier, but our attraction increases considerably when we open the hull to get a very unique object out in the open: The barrel, containing our famous FRAM cognac. Now this is something else, the content of this cask had been brewed with waters from both poles and then shipped on board across the Arctic and Antarctic circle, plus – inevitably – the equator, before it deserved to be called the one and only Adventure XO Cognac there is. Apparently the press cought wind of this maneuver and our presence, we had a TV team from „France III“, a radio journalist from „Radio France“ and a local newspaper fellow on board right upon arrival, full of questions about the cognac (hardly any about the vessel - that's France for you...). So, unloading the barrel was kind of a marketing stunt, followed by many.
The weather was trying to make us believe it’s already mid-June - mild breezes, blossoming trees, green grass, the old houses being sharply silhouetted against a clear blue sky, just right to start with the excursions. The City Tour takes us to all the „musts“ of the more than 2000 years old Bordeaux, a breathtakingly beautiful city indeed.
After lunch we take the opportunity to take a ride into the source of the most famous wine in the world. Imagine an endless landscape of vineyards, dotted here and there with the most luxurious and pretty old castles possible. There are numerous appellations, most of them ranking very high in the esteem of wine conoisseurs, every bit of soil being different, every grape attended to with utmost care knowledge. It is a world of ist own, and we get to see it from within, since after a while we stop at Chateau Giscours where the most excellent Margaux is produced and stored in hand-crafted oak barrels, a red wine that is world famous. After an extensive guided tour to the production line, everybody can sample the good stuff in a very nice ambience. And of course buy it, too...
