From September 6th to September 10th, the Rotaract Club of Bordeaux held the 3rd edition of its Beach & Wine Week: 5 days of discovering Bordeaux and the surrounding region with Rotaractors from all over the world.
This event has different purposes: making our club known on the international scene, developing exchanges and friendships between various rotaractors and promoting our beautiful region.
What ingredients are needed to make an unforgettable BBW?
Take 2 Austrian girls, a Russian girl, a Dutch boy and an American boy, mix them with the Bordeaux rotaracts, put them all into a nice program, add a bit of fun, and you have the perfect recipe for a very memorable event!
We cooked up a nice schedule: we started the appetizer with a sunset cocktail along the Garonne and a view over the UNESCO heritage site, the Place de la Bourse. As a starter, we visited Bordeaux and Saint-Emilion accompanied with a wine tasting. After this, we tried the Dune du Pilat, a lovely climb of the highest sand-dune in Europe before dipping our feet into the Atlantic Ocean to cool down! The main course was the week-end: coming together as a group, “la sauce a pris”, and we left the house as a family. A friendly barbecue, followed by French cheeses, please, people singing in the rain or in the pool, talking about everything and laughing at anything, doing crazy dancing moves or karaoke, speaking French and English but also some German and Spanish! This is how we all made this adventure MAGNIFIQUE! We actually realised, by living it, what the expressions of Rotalove and Rotafamily actually mean.
Very often, and every team knows it, plans change! On Saturday, we may have missed the boat but we had an oyster and pâté ‘dégustation’ on the beach, without forgetting the French way: it’s a must to have a glass of wine or two! Despite the rain and the wind, we got our cruise in the Arcachon Bay: a sunny tour around “Bird Island” to see the oyster farms and the picturesque ports and fishing villages along Cap Ferret. Back at our family home, we dressed up for the final dinner with our governor and a couple of Rotarians. The cherry on top was the view over the bay. On the fifth and final day, we had our second breakfast together and then it was time to leave, for some, and to clean, for others. Big hugs, warm goodbyes, thanks and invitations to see each other again were exchanged. This was an adventure: short, intense but awesomely great. The beauty of these exchanges and this newborn friendship remind us why we all love being rotaractors, wherever we are and wherever we go.
Thank you Lisa, Hemma, Alina, Robin and Alberto for joining us in this taste of French culture.
We also want to warmly thank Mr Jean-Paul Nouhaud, Governor of District 1690, as well as our sponsors, the Rotary Clubs of Bordeaux, for their support and their attendance at this event.
Goodbyes are not forever, so, until we meet again! See you in 2019 for the 4th BWW!
