Why I love where I live... in Bordeaux

Tim Pike, 55, originally from Bristol, first moved to Bordeaux (Gironde) aged 22 to work at the university as a lecteur (foreign language assistant).

He loved the dynamic city and soon made a circle of friends, including the woman who would become his wife. 

After four years in Bordeaux the couple spent 14 years in Paris, returning to Bordeaux in 2010 with two young children, drawn by the gentler pace of life. 

“One of the things I really like about Bordeaux is coming back as a 40-year-old rather than a 20-year-old – you experience it differently,” says Tim, who now works for French aerospace company Thales. 

“Bordeaux is big, but not too big. There is plenty going on but it doesn’t have that hectic feel that you get in a really big city.” 

Tim’s desire to “really get under the skin” of his adopted home inspired him to set up Invisible Bordeaux, a blog showcasing Bordeaux’s unusual and forgotten history. 

“I talk about things other than the main tourist features, and there has been a receptive audience,” he says.

One blog subject was US songwriter Mort Shuman, who wrote for Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin and who went on to have an easy listening career in France. 

“I couldn’t believe it the first time I found out that the guy who wrote Viva Las Vegas was buried in Bordeaux, in a very anonymous graveyard in the suburbs. So I worked on a one-man show based on his life.”

In The Shuman Show, Tim recounts Shuman’s career and performs his songs, from the early pop songs to his French hits. 

Other blog posts have also provided inspiration for songs Tim writes and performs with his band, Slow Rush. 

“When we’re performing in Bordeaux, I’ll introduce these songs as being about these bizarre stories – there’s this local connection that always goes down well.” 

One blog post-turned song recounts an infamous 1970s scandal when a winemaker was caught bottling cheap Languedoc-Rousillon and labelling it as prestige Bordeaux. Around the time of the Watergate scandal, it became known as “winegate”. 

Tim has found that even French people have often never heard the stories he unearths.

“Maybe in a way it took an outsider to link all the stories together and compile them into a blog,” he says. 

For visitors keen to get off the tourist trail, Tim recommends the Réserve écologique des Barails, a park to the north of Bordeaux with gardens inspired by Bordeaux’s twin cities. 

“There’s a garden inspired by Casablanca architecture, a Munich garden, a Madrid garden. It’s a little bit run-down sadly, you can even say it’s fading away, but you walk around and you’re instantly transported to these places around the world.” 

And as a keen cyclist, Tim enjoys getting out of the city on two wheels whenever he can, setting off from Bordeaux on weekend rides.

The city does have its challenges, however – number one being the weather. 

“It’s on the Atlantic coast so you get coastal weather here and there are periods when it just rains non-stop. That’s something they don’t tell you about.

“We’ve also got a real issue with tiger mosquitos and over the past four or five years it’s become incredible. That’s one of the most difficult things to deal with.”

Tim has now lived in France for longer than he lived in the UK. And after three decades, he has come to appreciate the French “obsession” with food and the focus on good quality produce. 

However, there are certain British delicacies he still misses.

“Cornish pasties and Rolos,” he says. “I make sure friends bring over Rolos when they visit.”