We woke up to rain — lots of it, cats and dogs, but decided to go with our plan to drive to Bordeaux. It rained most of the way, but when we arrived, it was cloudy but dry. We expected that most of the stores would be closed for the holiday, and were pleasantly surprised to find most of the cafes open. We tried to visit some churches, but were only able to view them from the outside since they were closed for the holiday.

We ate lunch at the Cafe Opera in Bordeaux, a truly elegant experience in an elegant space.

We had to find another route to the Abbaye tonight because of a local Bastille Day parade of antique cars and fire engines. The concert tonight was again excellent — it was 2 Mozart piano concertos and a Haydn symphony played by the Orchestre des Champs-Elysée. The pianist, Kristian Bezuidenhout, was very young, born in South Africa, and played a historic 19th-century piano (1840) which had a very sweet sound. This was the first concert in which the players were seated. I forgot to mention in earlier posts that except for the harpsichordist and gambist, all the players stand up to play.

Also unusual (so far) was that the pianist, Kristian Bezuidenhout, apologized to the audience that his French was non-existent, so he played a Mendelssohn Duetto as the encore.