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Bordeaux is packed with numerous restaurants , many of them top-notch, and due to its position close to the Atlantic coast, fresh seafood features prominently on many a Bordelais menu. The best place to look for restaurants is around place du Parlement and place St-Pierre, where you'll find something to please all tastes and budgets. There are numerous sandwich bars and fast-food outlets at the south end of rue Ste-Catherine and spilling into studenty place de la Victoire. In recent summers, guinguettes - open-air riverside stalls selling shrimps, king prawns and other seafood snacks - have proved a huge success, and they set up along the quai des Chartrons. Surprisingly, Bordeaux lacks any truly grand, people-watching cafés . Though Café Regent on place Gambetta is the place to be seen, a nicer, cheaper alternative is to be found across the square at Café Dijeaux beside the city gate. For picnic fodder , there is a marvellous, round market in the place des Grand-Hommes, north of cours de l'Intendance. And on rue de Montesquieu, just off the square, Jean d'Alos runs the city's best fromagerie , with dozens of farm-produced cheeses.

Bordeaux's student population ensures a collection of young, lively bars , a host of which are found on and around place de la Victoire. Several offer live music and all are packed on Thursday nights. There's also a clutch of English, Irish and antipodean pubs now in Bordeaux and a low-key gay scene concentrated at the south end of rue des Remparts.