Bordeaux

The water mirror catches the Place de la Bourse and holds it upside down in a sheet of still water, and children run through it barefoot while the eighteenth-century façade watches from both directions. Bordeaux, in south-west France, has shed its soot. The limestone glows gold along the Garonne, the quays are for walking, and the old wine-merchant quarter has turned its warehouses into antiques shops, design studios and wine bars.

Bordeaux's whole historic centre — the Port de la Lune, named for the crescent the river makes — is a World Heritage site, one of the largest urban listings in the world, and its face is the eighteenth century, when the wine trade paid for the stone façades that run along the Garonne for kilometres. The Place de la Bourse, designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, opens onto the river opposite the Miroir d'Eau, the shallow pool that alternates between a flawless reflection of the square and a drifting mist. Downstream on the Bacalan waterfront, the Cité du Vin — a building shaped like a decanter — tells the story of wine as a global phenomenon, and the Chartrons, historically the merchants' quarter, has a Sunday market along the quays. The region produces roughly 700 million bottles a year across sixty-five appellations, and the châteaux are a short drive out.