The capital of the Aquitaine region is renowned for its architectural patri-mony: Half the city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. As I stroll the greatest-hits route, past Victor Louis’s 1780 masterwork Grand-Théâtre, the Gothic Cathédrale Saint-André, and the medieval Grosse Cloche; consider later achievements, from La Caserne des Pompiers, the city’s 1954 functionalist firehouse, to the new Seeko’o Hotel, an iceberglike volume clad entirely in white Corian; and laze in the public spaces, from the diminutive Place du Parlement to the massive Esplanade des Quinconces, refinement and elegance meet me at every scale.

Yet rather than feeling like a fossilized flaneur, I am surprisingly vitalized by the changes instituted by Bordeaux’s mayor, Alain Juppé, since his 1995 election. Major streets have been pedestrianized, leaving the city cleaner, quieter, and filled with moments of ripe human narrative. (The ripest: I step in what I think is merde de chien. It proves to be foie gras.) Juppé commissioned a surpassingly elegant 27-mile tram system, which has united the historic center and outlying districts into a single metropolis. And he’s overseen the renovation of the left bank of the Garonne River, removing most of the ghost town of empty industrial buildings and replacing it with a waterside esplanade.

“We have no Bilbao,” architect Olivier Brochet tells me when we meet. “Bordeaux is about little things, very well done, respectful of the urban context.” In thrall to the city’s classical physiognomy and leading-edge
urbanity, I can only think: Ça suffit.

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Bordeaux, France