BORDEAUX Had paparazzi existed in the 12th century, they would have loved Eleanor of Aquitaine. With a dowry that embraced most of southwest France, she was wed to the King of France; 15 years later he divorced her, and she promptly married the 19-year-old Henry Plantagenet, the future King of England, taking her dowry with her. Thus did half of France become English for 300 years, and Bordeaux become the most English of French cities.

By RICHARD DE COMBRAY

races of England remain in this city of 214,000 people: for example, in the austerity of the quiet, shaded streets and in a certain decorousness in the behavior of the Bordelais. There are shops of infinite refinement--for chocolates, for pates, for caviar or champagne or good silver. Discreet signs advertise a "Gentlemen's Clothier." On the Cours Alsace-Lorraine, the Sanglier de Russie (founded 1814) offers brushes in every imaginable form. On the Rue des Ramparts a shop sells only razors. Tobacconists sell enameled corkscrews for opening favorite Bordeaux wines.

But although the Britishness of Bordeaux is singular, the city's proximity to Spain and the south manifests itself as soon as the weather gets warm. Tables are set out on the sidewalks or sprawl across the cobblestones in the vast network of car-free pedestrian streets, and the squares are jammed with parasols. The 17th century Place du Parlement vibrates with chatter, while around the corner the crescent-shaped riverside Place de la Bourse endures a power-hose spray-cleaning, ready to be acknowledged as one of the architectural marvels of Europe.

Throughout this extensive neighborhood, much of it medieval, the liveliness feels Mediterranean rather than Atlantic, provincial instead of urban. Churches like St. Pierre seem to have sunk through the centuries under their own weight, like the ancient Byzantine churches in Greece. Weighty, too, and awaiting restoration, the ancient Basilica St. Michel faces the Place Canteloup, a square in which four days a week a flea market-cum-open-air souk competes with parked cars. This cheek-by-jowl atmosphere is so beguiling, both ethnically and historically, that it's hard to resist the impulse to pull up a chair at the Cafe de la Fraternite, order some mint tea and merely watch, lost in time and place.

A surprise of another sort can be found in the Museum of Contemporary Art, a former warehouse built in 1814. The simplest of wooden doors leads to a stone space three stories high, intriguingly proportioned to contain the largest possible artworks. At times the exhibitions mounted here are too arcane for even the most intrepid avant-gardist; nonetheless the space alone is worth the visit.

Bordeaux's museums are many: the Museums of Decorative Arts, of Fine Arts, of Aquitaine, of Natural History. There is also the Grand Theater--a curious name, given that the building is so non-monumental. It's a small and brilliant jewel, with four tiers of boxes in semicircles, framed by columns that are echoed in diminishing perspective by the stage curtain. The sound, even from the top tiers (called Attic and Paradise), is impressive. So is the vertigo.

In Bordeaux there is a constant awareness of food and wine, obvious obsessions given the 135,000 hectares of vineyards that begin just at the city's edge: Margaux, Paulliac, St. Estephe, St. Emilion--5,000 wine-producing chateaux, 178 crus classes, 850 million bottles a year. The wine list at the pricey restaurant Le Chapon Fin goes back even further than its Belle Epoque decor. Less grand and somewhat frenzied, La Tupina is more interested in getting the wonderful food to the table and holding back the throngs who have learned of its great reputation. Then there's the neighborhood bistro Le Malby, run by a proprietor who serves a first-class meal with decent wine for about $30. He'll also provide the one thing almost unobtainable in France, except at the Ritz in Paris: a perfect dry martini.

The city plans to welcome World Cup visitors at the Mondial Cafe, an immense reception area on the Esplanade des Quinconces equipped with a giant TV screen, a press center, a vast terrace for concerts, two bars and seven restaurants. A "Global Village" will offer exhibits from participating countries: the brass-and-percussion bandas of Aquitaine, which play at the ferias and bullfights of Spain and the French southwest, will stage an outdoor music festival from June 19 to 21; on the quays there will be a huge wine-tasting with dancing, street theater, rustic markets and restaurants serving southwestern specialties, and fireworks over the Garonne River from June 26 to 28. And from June 28 to 30 a fleet of 30 hot-air balloons will waft across the city's skies.