Going With The Flow: Mixing Waterways With Fairways On A French River Cruise

At my stage of life and career, new experiences are very much to be relished. In the case of Uniworld’s all-inclusive Brilliant Bordeaux French river cruise with my wife in August, reality would turn out to more than exceed expectation.

Despite fitting the demographic perfectly, we were both first-time cruisers, so apologies here to readers for whom the whole cruise thing is water off a duck’s back.

In our slightly nervous novice capacity, it was timely to meet and chat to experienced cruisers from the same Gatwick flight at Bordeaux Merignac airport ahead of our transfer to Uniworld’s SS Bon Voyage, docked and waiting for us on the River Garonne in Bordeaux.

I’m not going to lie – while I find it easy to get to know, and build a rapport with, people on the golf course, I’ve often found it less easy in the wider social context. But chatting to old hands at this cruise malarkey quickly forged friendships that would see us spend much time together throughout the week on the various excursions and around the dinner table.

Warren and Heidi (about our age) and Betty and Arthur (a little older) became our near-constant companions, showing us the ropes and giving us valuable insight into cruise life. By the time we reached the riverside to be greeted on board (with something suitably fizzy) along with 100 other guests, we knew a bit more about what to expect.

So, when we were shown to our lovely stateroom, we were well aware that, although well-equipped and beautifully decorated, it would also be quite bijoux, so you have to run a tight ship in terms of storing stuff.

My usual hotel schtick of not unpacking and living out of the case was simply not an option. Think of one of those puzzles where you move squares around to complete the picture and there’s only one right way. That said, it was elegant, cosy and the perfect place to escape the French summer heat.

Anyway, 400 words in, and barely a mention of golf, so you might be forgiven for wondering why this article is on a golf publication's website.

Well, in addition to the many and varied excursions, including wine tastings (not surprisingly), chateaux and village visits, oyster tastings (not for me!) and a Bordeaux city tour, Uniworld had also introduced an optional premium golf package on this particular cruise, with rounds at Cabot Bordeaux (a Bill Coore design) and Grand Saint Emilionnais (a Tom Doak creation), two of the best courses in France.

Bordeaux highlights on and off the course

Away from the fairways, the grape understandably formed a major focus in this area renowned for its wine. We visited several chateaux, getting to taste their output fairly extensively (but not irresponsibly), driving past vineyard after vineyard and countless other chateaux as our tour bus made its way round the Bordeaux region.

I got to know my appellation from my Grand Cru and learned that only six grapes are allowed if a wine hopes to be classified a Bordeaux – Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carmenere.

These are all reds, of course, but none as vibrantly red as the large rabbit that greets you, randomly, on the 1st tee of the Chateaux layout at Cabot Bordeaux. Cabot had taken over the former Golf du Medoc course a year earlier, and in a neat nod to the region’s prime export, the 150m markers were wooden, oversized wine bottles. As for the rabbit, who knows!

An American cruise guest and I were paired with two French members and as well as battling the course, I also fought a constant battle with my memory, trying to retrieve as much of my dormant French from 45 years ago as possible from its dark recesses, while our French friends attempted the same with their English.

I’m pleased to say we made it work on a course that had more than a hint of an expansive UK heathland test in places.

There were choices from the off via a split fairway on the 1st, where left is easier to find but right offers the better approach. The 4th is an awkward dogleg left with a big bunker guarding the apex, while the drive on the 6th plays towards three distinctive pines, one on a pronounced lean.

The par 3s at 5 and 8 both involve water: the former across the corner of a lake, with left the only good miss, the latter a semi-island green, where left is definitely not the good miss.

Watch out for the stream at carry distance on the 11th, while the 15th is a strong par 4 playing round to the left where you’ll have to fade it over the bunkers if the draw is not in your locker.

We ‘enjoyed’ a distinctly inaccessible right pin on 17 into the wind courtesy of the vast acreage of sand on that side.

New experiences

Back on board post-round, I got my first taste of what this trip was all about (cruising) although my wife had already sailed in my absence.

The SS Bon Voyage had headed down river to Pauillac since my early departure for golf and would gradually work its way round onto the Dordogne via the Gironde estuary (the largest in Europe) throughout the week.

Among my non-golf highlights were a visit to Chateau Royal de Cazeneuve, a building steeped in history where we enjoyed the previously unsampled delights of Sauternes wine – a sweet white variety that slipped down nicely on account of it being closer to dessert wine in taste and texture than the sweet whites of dubious quality from my teenage years, like Black Tower.

Our guide told us there’s a saying that one vine equals one bottle of wine, but with Sauternes, one vine equals one glass.

I also enjoyed the tour around the 17th-century citadel at Blaye, and any time spent on the SS Bon Voyage’s sun deck, whiling away the hours with the odd glass of wine and games of Yahtzee with our new friends.

As we ventured round onto the Dordogne, we encountered a tidal surge called the Mascaret twice a day, with the boat relocating to the middle of the river from the quayside at Libourne while the phenomenon passed through. This meant an early breakfast on day five so I could disembark before the morning Mascaret for my trip to Grand Saint Emilionnais Golf Club.

I enjoyed my round on this Doak course in the most rustic of settings, even if, just as at many UK courses, the prolonged red-hot summer in these parts had left the fairways some way from their best, with water usage severely restricted for environmental reasons.

That said, the greens and aprons were good, and there were some interesting green complexes and putting surfaces throughout, starting on the downhill 1st, where the small green is raised on all sides, making recovery work a more complicated affair. The par-3 3rd then plays down and over a stream to a potentially bewildering rollercoaster green.

There’s a very unusual and pronounced bank short-left of the 6th green, while the long par-3 9th, over a sadly far-from-full reservoir, will take your best shot to find the surface.

There’s another interesting small green on the 11th, and I particularly enjoyed it when my driver Matthieu, who accompanied me on the round, shouted “be the right number” with a strong French accent on the long par-3 12th. Sadly, it most definitely was not the right number!

The lovely uphill par-3 14th leads you into back-to-back par 5s before the attractive dogleg-left 17th, which crosses, then flanks, a stream/ditch, before a final climb back to the clubhouse (and lunch) on 18.

While I was away playing golf, my wife was enjoying a tour of the village at St Emilion, with her highlights including the monolithic underground church and the incredible rooftop vistas.

Like me, she had also enjoyed the citadel in Blaye with its little boutique shops, plus the cathedral and Gordon Ramsay’s Le Pressoir d’Argent restaurant in Bordeaux, the latter very much from the exterior only given the menu pricing.

Laughter is the best medicine

We both thoroughly enjoyed the immersive and incredible digital light and sound experience in Bassins des Lumieres, a former WWII submarine base on the river in Bordeaux, even if there was also a slightly eerie vibe to the venue.

We laughed a lot, and many things tickled both us and our new friends over the course of the week. It amused me that the restaurant on board was, perhaps understandably, called Le Grand Fromage.

It amused us all that a rival boat on the river called Cyrano de Bergerac should have a fittingly prominent bow; and the border police’s unintentional hall of mirrors at Bordeaux airport caused much hilarity via some hugely unflattering distortions as the six of us queued for the flight home (you had to be there).

We vowed, as we often do on these trips, that we should all meet up again down the line. Somehow, this time I think we will...

● For more information about Uniworld’s Brilliant Bordeaux cruise with golf and many other cruise options, both river and sea, visit uniworld.com