We stopped for lunch at Baud & Millet, a snug cheese and wine restaurant where we ate confit de canard amid crates of bottles and wine memorabilia. Then we were invited downstairs to pick from an array of wonderfully furry malodorous cheeses in its cave as water dropped delicately down our necks.

After lunch, we boarded the coach to visit two wineries in the Medoc, 40 minutes (and a quite thorough kip) to the north, where we toured facilities and of course tasted the wine.

The next morning I set off on my own to the flea market at the foot of St Michel, opting for the tram so as to take in the waterfront. This is a proper old-fashioned flea market. One stall seller tried to sell me two entire boxes of vintage magazines for €10.

Tables were piled with videocassettes, clothes and old Barbie dolls; blankets spread on the ground showcased scrap metal and knickknacks. Across the street at a sunny café, old-timers and visitors alike sat smoking cigarettes and drinking their cafes. I walked to the Place de Capuchins, where the Marché aux Capuchins - a large covered food market - is held.

Multimedia

• Gallery: Bordeaux

All aboard for a wine-tasting cruise

Fancy a wine tour, without the driving? Here's a solution - a cruise for non-experts to Rioja, Bordeaux and the Loire

• Boat du Rhône

BACKGROUND

• French toast in Beaujolais

• Fine wines in Languedoc

• From grape to glass in Corsica

BACKGROUND

• A honeymoon drive through Bordeaux

• A Rough Guide: the best of France

• The best of rural France

I sat at café just inside, amid the fishmongers and an accordioniste playing the theme from Amelie and had the standard 6 oysters plus a glass of white wine for €5.50. Then I walked over to the Saint-Andre Cathedral, Bordeaux's finest church, had a chevre chaud salad at a café in the sunny plaza outside, then walked back to my hotel. The diversions in Bordeaux are legion but you don't have to spend hours running all over town to find them.

A weekend here on the tourist trail can feel very cosy, especially when you run into other visitors several times, as I did. I spotted two couples my first night in town at La Tupina: They were having animated conversations across the aisle while a married French gentleman of a certain age struck up conversation with me and - in the best of French traditions - flirted, shared his wine and discussed the state of politics and good food.

They spotted me the next day and struck up conversation. Paul and Katrina Hindmarsh were visiting the city for a weekend with their friends Julian and Sarah Cole, taking in an afternoon wine tasting tour in the Medoc. "We booked through the tourist office and they were fabulous," said Katrina. Their room at the Quality Inn St Catherine was adequate, but they loved being in the pedestrianised old town. "It's the location. That's what you need," said Katrina. Like me, they'd planned to visit some museums. But "we ended up in the chocolate shop."

NEED TO KNOW

When to go

Grand Déballage de Brocante, a flea market festival near the Saint-Michel church, April and October.
Bordeaux Fete le Vin, www.bordeaux-fete-le-vin.com, June (00 33 5 5600 6617)
Bordeaux River Festival - www.bordeaux-fete-le-fleuve.com, June (5600 6617)
La Fete du Vin Nouveau and de la brocante, a wine and knickknack street festival, October (5652 6613)
Bordeaux Jazz Festival, Oct/Nov each year, www.bordeauxjazzfestival.com
Novart Bordeaux, a contemporary art festival, November (5610 2046)
Christmas market, December (5679 5242)

Information

Bordeaux Tourist Office, 12, cours du 30 Juillet (5600 6600)