With many miles of classically poised façades, Bordeaux is one of the most handsome cities in France and the one which expresses most consistently the Age of Enlightenment through architecture. The eighteenth century saw the city grow into France’s principal port, and wholesale redevelopment commensurate with its great wealth transformed the ancient city.

The characteristic of restrained elegance was already established in the seventeenth century, and was respected in the nineteenth, resulting in a remarkable and enchanting homogeneity of the streets, squares and boulevards. Among the architectural set pieces of the age are Jacques Gabriel’s Place Royale and Victor Louis’ great theatre, the largest and grandest of eighteenth-century Europe.

Some of the crooked, narrow streets of the mediaeval city survive, as do a number of Gothic churches, including the cathedral of St André. More recently Bordeaux has undergone a makeover and was awarded UNESCO world heritage site status in 2007. The waterfront along the river Garonne, which forms the city’s backbone, has been completely revamped, with old wine warehouses giving way to imaginative flower gardens and cycle paths. Choice insertions of modernity include the startling new Law Courts by Richard Rogers.

Inextricably entwined with the history of the city is the wine of the region, the largest quality wine-growing area in France, and perhaps the greatest in the world. The Bordelais’ most prestigious wine appellations – including Margaux and Pauillac, Barsac and Sauternes, Saint-Émilion and Pomerol – fan out from the city in all directions. Tasting the wines with the châteaux winemakers and owners in person and eating in their private dining rooms allows for an intimate insight into their philosophies and the characteristics of such inimitable terroirs.

In France wine is almost never drunk alone, and Bordeaux boasts a lively food scene to complement its incredible array of appellations. Local ingredients are prepared with skill by talented chefs, both traditional and modernist, in some of the most distinguished restaurants in France. No Bordeaux meal would be complete without the local bread, pastries, macarons and canelés.

For the Bordelais, the chic coastal town of Arcachon is the location of their summer homes by the ocean. Home of the Ville d’Hiver with its turn-of-the century villas, the town is as much a part of their landscape as the vineyards. The basin is full of oyster farms and cabanes tchanquées, wooden huts on stilts from which the farmers could keep watch on their farms, even in high tide. At the nearby Moulin de la Cassadotte 70,000 sturgeon contribute to the fabrication of the sustainably produced Caviar d’Aquitaine.