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In Roman times, Bordeaux was capital of the province of Aquitania Secunda . With the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry II of England in 1152, it quickly became the principal English foothold for their three-hundred-year Aquitanian adventure, and it was to their presence, and particularly their taste for its red wines - imported back to England and termed "claret" - that the region owed its first great economic boom. The second boom, which financed the building of the gracious eighteenth-century centre of Bordeaux, came with the expansion of colonial trade during that period The surrounding countryside is more notable for its wines and vineyards than its scenery, though the hills of Entre-Deux-Mers and the pretty town of St-Emilion are worth visiting in their own right. More interesting is the vast pine-covered expanse of Les Landes and the huge, wild Atlantic beaches of the Cote d'Argent to the south. But it is not a landscape that charms. Its appeal, like desert, is more in its size and uniqueness - and you definitely need your own transport to explore it.
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