The seaport Bordeaux, formerly known as "Port of Bordeaux", is governed by a public institution.
It was founded in ancient times, so dedicated to trade metals, wine or pottery. It grows significantly when connecting Aquitaine to the kingdom of England in 1152 and Bordeaux wines are then exported to the British Isles and in return are routed to Bordeaux textiles and cereals.
After the Hundred Years War, it was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the port is a new boom with colonial trade also "triangular trade": Bordeaux ships leave for Africa from where they carry slaves to the Caribbean and the Americas, then returning to Europe with products such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton. He was the first French port and the second in the world behind London. Meanwhile, the wine trade is a quarter of its business.
Now established on the banks of the Garonne River upstream of the estuary of the Gironde, the seaport Bordeaux currently has seven terminals staking tens of kilometers of shoreline (Le Verdon, Pauillac, Blaye, Ambès, Grattequina, Bassens and Bordeaux same). The sites are equipped according to their specialization (cereals, oilseeds, wood, feed, paper, refined petroleum products - this sector represents just over half of the traffic -, ore and containers). His treaties nowadays 8 to 9 million tonnes of cargo per year, the equivalent of 400,000 trucks.
Note that the Port of the Moon in Bordeaux same is classified since 2007 as UNESCO World Heritage.
The seaport Bordeaux whole covers over 700 hectares, accommodates some 1,100 ships per year in terms of exports, serving 300 destinations.
Information port activity +33 5 56 90 58 00. For rides or cruises on the Garonne and the estuary to observe the port facilities, information at the Tourist Office on +33 5 56 00 66 00.
