User:Ponads17/sandbox

Working On: Bordeaux’s culture. The Culture topic on Bordeaux’s Wiki page are a scant three sentences. However, sport, sight-seeing spots like museums, and wine are represented on the page, but none of them really incorporated into the culture section. The wine is covered from an economic and not a cultural perspective, sport is wholly separate under transportation, and museums and architectural interests are just listed under sights to see. Ideally, the whole page could be reorganized with sport and the sight-seeing that lists museums under the banner of culture, and the economy could be moved to so that wine could segway into culture. Since I did not want to undertake the entire reorganization of such a full page, like Bordeaux’s, I tried to focus on what I could add to the topic.

Culture
Bordeaux is home to eleven museums and various types of galleries, exhibitions, and performance spaces. It is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can see various attractions such as the illuminated transcripts at the Treasury of the Saint-Andre Cathedral. In the summer of 2018, Bordeaux opened its Museum of the Sea and Seafaring alongside the port with an exhibition on Monet, showcasing more than 60 of his pieces portraying the coast and the sea. Standing at 180 feet tall, La Cité du Vin, opened June 1, 2016, is an architectural wonder symbolizing a knotted grapevine. The Cité du Vin is a wine museum and educational exhibit, such as the exhibit running from October 2018 through January 2019 which showcased Portuguese wines. Another site of cultural importance is the Place du Grand Théâtre, which houses the Opéra national de Bordeaux.

Among the various cultural activities Bordeaux offers are river cruises that take you on vineyard tours and to various heritage sites. Darwin is another site which is an alternative space, providing a venue for environmental and activist work, and occupying the old Niel barracks. Bordeaux also hosts an annual Marathon along the Garonne River every March.

Bordeaux holds several cultural festivals, such as the Sigma Festival, which ran from 1965-1996. The Sigma Festival was a week of cultural events, aimed at experimenting with artistic techniques, whether it was music, dance, theater, or even art-science collaborations. Another example of a cultural festival was the Evento 2011: Art for an Urban Re-Evolution. During this festival Opera Pagai had a performance piece involving an artificial fixed island with  a family of farmers in the middle of the Garonne River. The local media were in on the performance, and did not let on that it was a commissioned part of the festival. In 2019, Bordeaux is holding the 14th annual Grand Crus Weekend, where visitors can wine, dine, and tour various vineyards and castles associated with the Grand Crus distinction. Bordeaux Fête Le Fleuve’ festival is celebrated focused on the dock, as part of the cultural season, ‘Liberté! Bordeaux 2019’. Among the four days of celebration there will be concerts, nautical activities, and fireworks along the Garonne as part of the festival, as well as artists interpretations of their notions of “freedom.”

Bordeaux is France’s biggest wine appellation (AOC) and it gives a lot of cultural capital to the wines of Bordeaux, along with the climate and wine growing tradition. For Bordeaux wine growers, their wine is important in large part to its place and tradition. Wine became so culturally important to Bordeaux largely due to English control of the port in the 12th through 13th centuries which gave Bordeaux wine growers special privileges and less taxes than their regional competitors. The Grand Crus classification was created to deal with cheaper competitors in Portugal and Spain.

Wine and wine tourism is a rich part of Bordeaux's culture and fame. In 2008 Trip Advisor ranked Bordeaux as number one of the top ten most popular wine regions in the world, and between January and August 2010, Bordeaux received more than 14,700 visitors. Bordeaux has 480 chateaus, wine cooperatives, and wine trade house that offer more than 20 different weekend stays, bringing wine together wine, history, and spa and golf activities. When compared with other regions, Bordeaux considers arts and concerts important part of their wine tourism.

Religion of France generally seen as Catholic, but as recently as the 1800’s, spiritism was popular in the area, with a visiting priest giving sermons four consecutive weekends about the evils of spiritism.