People friendly Bordeaux

So it turns out that Bordeaux had an enlightened mayor who  transformed much of the city. We found this side of Bordeaux today. It is really cycle friendly and although Noah's bike still hasn't arrived (grrrr) we cycled around today after rigging up a thermarest on my rear pannier rack with two panniers with plastic plates at the bottom as footpegs for him to sit on. They are really laid back here. Noone blinked seeing Noah on the back. We also went sans helmets like the locals. Bikes and cars and pedestrians just get along here and there are lots of one way side streets where it's just acceptable to ride the wrong way. I haven't ridden in such a cycle-easy city before. They also have quite a few car free streets, good public transport and almost free bike hire (the kind where you pick up a bike at an automated station and return it to any station in town). Another cool thing, which gets people back into the street is this huge water feature - the miroir d'eau (water mirror). This is Olympic pool sized but about 1 inch deep and made of black granite. It is cyclically filled then emptied and in between this array of misters sprays water like a cloud. People play in it and today, at 32oC, it was full of people playing and cooling off.