Thursday 22 January 2009

Le Samovar - Salon de Thé, Bordeaux

Two hip strangers I managed to snap in the late afternoon in Bordeaux (above and below).

Having wandered the streets of Bordeaux for a few hours, and fuelled only by my early morning baguette and Café au Lait, I was delighted (as were my aching feet-all those cobblestones are hard work on the tootsies!) when I stumbled across a quirky little Salon de Thé, Le Samovar, in the quartier Saint Michel.
It is a cosy space filled with hundreds of second-hand books, lots of mixed matched sofas and chairs, throw rugs, kitsch objet d'art, and vintage lamps. It feels very much like taking tea in your Great Aunt's cluttered living room, um, except without your Great Aunt hovering about offering stale Rich Tea biscuits and unwanted advice on the state of your love life.
The coffee was, well, average, but you don't go to France for the coffee (unlike Italy!). You go to sit in cafe's like this one to soak up the atmosphere, to eavesdrop on conversations, to write, and to dream a thousand dreams.


Le Samovar
rue camille sauvageau, st Michel, 33800 Bordeaux

The photos below are of some lovely students I met while dreaming my thousand dreams :)



















p.s. I do put spaces between my paragraphs-but then then they disappear when I post! arghhhhhhhhh
See, this is when an IT guru would come in very handy to hold my little hand

5 comments:

  1. mmmm that first 'stranger' is a bit of all right I reckon! hubba hubba! One may not notice a slightly stale Rich Tea biscuit if he was sitting across the coffee table from one ;)
    btw the place (not just the guy) looks awesome.

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  2. Hee Hee!!! He is quite the hottie, non?!! Not that I noticed of course;)
    He was with a girl who was stunning (with a capital S) but she didn't want to have her photograph taken- so I snapped him instead.
    The cafe was such a sweet little place- I was researching for cafe's in Bordeaux before I went and couldn't find anything (in English) so hopefully this will help visitors who are looking for somewhere "not touristy" to have a cup of java :)

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  3. ooh la la he certainly is!
    I'll remember that if ever in Bordeaux, or in europe again for that matter, loving the non touristy places.i fear the exchange rate and some other reasons may force me to travel only to cheap asian countries however.not that my last trip wasnt utterly fabulous.
    Ps how uncouth of me to write hubba hubba! it's a hot night here (watching Federer and Safin match on tv) and the heat is clearly getting to me :)

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  4. Rarrrrrrrr, damn shame the lovely bit of French stuff was with a gorgeous girl!! Whatahottie. This one rates as one of my fave of your blog pages and not just coz of the cute fella. Very romantic, very funny and sweet writing Ness. You're a joy to check up on every day. Keep up the good, nay great work.

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  5. aww shucks- that is very sweet of you Miss ewah!! It is lovely to know I have two readers of the blog! Actually the inspiration behind the great aunt's house analogy was a combination of your Grandma (I hope she doesn't read blogs!!) and the Aunts of my other anon blog fan (Ms C) above...not that I am suggesting that either of your relatives would serve up stale biccies!!!
    Mmmm yes, I suspect Mr Hottie was a model.
    Ms C, I am DYING to go to China...so how about we swap! you can go to Europe for holidays and I go to China, or Vietnam, or India or or or....

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