An exhibition held last weekend as part of the Saint-Michel/Nansouty/Saint-Michel quarter's Arty Garden Party featured a number of my photos. Fellow snapper Amandine Maurand and I had been commissioned by Bonjour Bordeaux supremo Yves Maguin to team up with him to take photographs in the surrounding neighbourhood. 

Some 60 of our shots were on display at the event, which was held in the rather lovely Jardin des Dames de la Foi. As an integral part of the programme - which also featured concerts, drama productions, guided walking tours, children's workshops, yoga sessions and martial arts demos - the exhibition proved to be popular and district mayor Fabien Robert even stated that the photos uncovered a number of sights with which he was unfamiliar.

To the side of a roundabout in Mérignac, not far from junction 10 of the Rocade ringroad, a flame-shaped marble plaque is the sole reminder of what was once located there or thereabouts: Mérignac-Beaudésert internment camp.

The Beaudésert district, after playing a leading role in the birth of aviation in the area, had formed the backdrop to a 20,000-bed hospital set up by the US Army during the First World War. Then, throughout the 1920s, the surrounding area had been earmarked by the local authorities for an “Olympic”-style village with sports fields, tennis courts, swimming pool and skating rink. The ambitious plans were soon shelved though and the area instead became occupied by the traveller community... whose immediate environment was about to change radically.

It is September 3rd 1910, and the silhouette which can be seen over to the top right of the picture above, flying over the Garonne in central Bordeaux, is that of a Voisin-Gnome biplane, with the Peruvian aviator Juan Bielovucic on board (inset). His arrival in the city came ahead of a week-long “Grande semaine d’aviation”, which laid the foundations of the longstanding and healthy relationship between the Bordeaux area and aeronautics… and was in many ways the birth of Mérignac airport.

The annual European heritage days take place on September 14th and 15th. As ever the event will provide a unique opportunity to get behind the scenes of many fascinating places, or else stay out in the open and enjoy some fine guided walking tours. 

Here is a small selection of some of the more unusual visits which have caught the eye of Invisible Bordeaux, while the full list of venues and visits - in Bordeaux and beyond - can be found on the official event website.