The Arrow
A detached 114-metre spire — the tallest in southern France.
Image details Casio EX ZR1000 Orikrin1998 CC-BY-3.0 — CC BY 3.0 · Tylwyth Eldar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tylwyth Eldar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tylwyth Eldar — CC BY-SA 4.0
The silty riverside ground could not bear a spire on the church itself, and Bordeaux's answer was the same at both great churches: a freestanding bell house. The result is two landmarks per site instead of one.
By day a perfectly ordinary lively popular district of markets and cafés — among Bordeaux's most authentic experiences. As in any big city: watch belongings in the Sunday market crush, and keep to main streets late.
Bordeaux's historic covered market — fish, oysters, cheeses and lunch stalls that fill with locals at weekends. Arcachon oysters with lemon here are a complete Bordeaux ritual, with Maghrebi and Asian stalls for every taste.
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Saint-Michel is popular Bordeaux's heart: a flamboyant Gothic church of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries whose detached tower — 'the Arrow' — rises 114 metres, the south of France's tallest spire. Around it turns the multicultural Saint-Michel quarter and its markets: the Sunday flea and antiques market at the basilica's feet, the covered Capucins market — 'Bordeaux's belly' — minutes away, and Maghrebi and Spanish cafés that make this the most Mediterranean-spirited of Bordeaux's quarters. The tower can be climbed in season (some 230 steps) with a view to rival Pey-Berland's, and the basilica shares the cathedral's UNESCO listing on the Santiago roads.
A detached 114-metre spire — the tallest in southern France.
Markets and many-rooted cafés — real popular Bordeaux.
Flame-style portals and tracery in the old artisans' church.
Place Meynard, 33000 Bordeaux