Megs Typing
We left Dijon early-ish to drive the 5-6 hours to the Champagne region of France. In our normal travel day sequence of events we happened upon a small/medium town of Langres that had a market happening. It was around midday so we looked for a car park and this can be flukishly easy or a mind challenging puzzle of narrow one way streets with very little signage. In this case it was easy, main street went one way through town and had parking spots with meters. And with a little assist from Nana above, as always, we found a lovely car park – done.
Elona has been looking for a replacement daypack for quite some time – various reasons (namely room and weight). I had already replaced my daypack once in Canada and I am of the impression that they do not make them with the durability required to prevent fraying from the zip when they are jam-pack full everyday for nearly 4 months. Hence I recently joined the search for a replacement daypack (my 3rd of the trip). Why pray tell am I sharing this information at this time – because it was after parking the car and heading towards the market that Elona happened to notice in a luggage/bag shop window some very cute cabin bags in very cool colours. After a lengthy demonstration of all the bag’s features in French we decided that they were roomy enough, cabin size and a 2 year international warranty was fantastic. Colours selected and bags purchased, now to the markets – which were now closed for lunch bummer missed them – but we now have new day bags – excellent.
It was around this time though that I realised that I was not 100% sure what day it was let alone the day. There had been a minor discrepancy whilst in Dijon with day/date of the week when we were trying to co-ordinate a time to visit Belgium, but I shrugged that off and the matter was forgotten – until now. I said to Elona that I am pretty sure I double booked our accommodation for the previous night by accident. I think that booking.com is a wonderful tool but something they could add for frequent travellers is some kind of warning message to alert the dufus driving the search engine that they had just booked accommodation for the same night in hotels 300km apart. When I checked the booking confirmation my fears were realised…DUMB DUMB DUMB!!!!
Elona was confident that if we played blonde we should be all right. We arrived at the accommodation in Reims and discovered that they were not taking check-ins until 6pm – it doesn’t happen often that check-ins are that late in the day but in France it has been much more frequent. Reims is the centre for all wine/champagne export in the area and as a result is a mass of on ramps and off ramps as people travel through Reims from one place to another. The complex maze of motorways can take you in and out of Reims 3 or 4 times in 5 minutes as you try to traverse from one direction to the next. Having a car is essential in this area. We went in search of food whilst we waited the 45 mins for check-in. MickyD’s was the closest food outlet we recognised in the Ken TomTom Navman’s list of food places. So McDonalds it was.
Just as a small aside – McDonalds and Starbucks worldwide can be depended on for having toilet facilities and WiFi and therefore can become an oasis of physical relief and connectivity. (The food is crap though J Elona)
On returning to the hotel to check-in Elona confidently approached the reception desk and announced we had a reservation for 2 nights in the name La Caze. Pause, shuffle of papers, click or two of the mouse – the man said yes that was for yesterday. No two nights from tonight wasn’t it, no said the man politely from the 17th, yes and today is the 17th??????? No, (now with a calendar to demonstrate) today is the 18th. Ohh, what happens now ??? Can we stay the two nights??? We are sooo sorry about the mix-up!!!!
In the end we stayed 2 nights, and didn’t get charged for the room the night that we had accidently booked and didn’t show-up. The people were very understanding and accommodating.
We hauled our luggage inside and proceeded to transfer the contents of the existing day bags to the new just purchased version. OOOPs my broke – WHAT????? Yes the zip just broke as I went to open the case the first time – BUMMER!!!! Elona successfully transferred everything to the new case and all was good. I spent most of the same time trying to find a stockist in Reims where I could exchange the bag for a new one – No Luck – having said that it is not easy to do in a foreign language on the Internet. I tried to contact the America Tourist company that made the bags – e-mail address on website was not current.
Our first day in the Champagne region was spent driving the 3 hours back to Langres to change the bag and then driving the 3 hours bag to Reims. We were planning to go the Moet Chandon but as our arrival time was approaching 6pm we thought an early start in the morning before we drove to Belgium was probably a more enjoyable option.
And we were right. We arrived in Champagne, walked in and booked the last 2 tickets to the English speaking tour at the Moet Chandon (Dom Perignon) cellars for 12.30 pm. The tour includes amazing stories and extremely interesting process from traditional to modern and very very nice Champagne. See Photos.
After a glass of champagne I wanted a cup of coffee and about half an hour to allow the champagne to settle before I got behind the wheel. We found a cutesy café just off the main circle. We decided that is was to be a decadent day and ordered coffee and crepes. I decided lemon and sugar, as did Elona – though she felt that a Toblerone crepe would be good for dessert.
Decadence done, we were on our way to Belgium to see Roel and Carlijn.
Elona typing
Meg’s being the polite girl that she is didn’t mention that I had downed two glasses of champagne and drank a coffee and those of you who know me well will know I was completely off my nutter and was on a high for about an hour and a half and my usual sub standard passenger qualities went to zero as I slept my way to Belgium – sorry Megs!!
All around France there are fields upon fields of the crop you see pictured behind the poppy flowers, as for it's identification we have eliminated any type of spring onion or root vegetable. We have decided that it is most likely a food crop for grazing animals - though that is just a guess - if you are more knowledgable in these areas, can you please send us a comment and let us know.
Having stopped to investigate this mysteriously popular crop - Elona took advantage of a rare side of the road photo opportunity (rare as the roads are narrow with blind corners) and took this fabulous photo - better than many postcards with similar scenes.
Side view of the church in Reims - currently the front facade is under renovation.
Not sure if this is a piece of currently used equipment or a display from yesteryear???
One first glance I commented to Elona that is looked like a large exercise wheel for mice.
Elona's favourite angel - she kicks butt!!!
Also found on many postcards. Also if you look closely it's as if she is overjoyed
that the bloke next to her has lost his head...well the top of it anyway!!!!!
One armed Mary - just as well she is not Flemish! LOL
The front of the church was decorated with many many statues - most of whom had lost their hands. I did ask Elona what the possible meaning of this phenomenon was considering that during the middle ages if you stole anything - even bread you had your hands cut off????
What pray-tell did the Saints steal???????
Walking through Reims mall we found this restaurant with BLUE lobsters - HOW COOL!!!
Unfortunately we had already eaten - maybe next time.
This is the pain in the arse crop we have no idea what its name is - it is everywhere!!!
On the way to Champagne - the advertising starts with the smaller cellars or caves.
Town Hall - Champagne. It is located directly across the street from Moet Chandon.
The "Father of Champagne"
Elona with the big man himself.
This is the imperial room, where Napoleon Bonaparte did something or other
that required papers to sign in this room. Bloody Megs wants me to look this up now...hang on
...she's doing it...just as well really...still waiting...I told her it would take forever...hhhmmmmm...
we could sing while we wait....maybe not...ready yet?? god I've now had to listen to
a whole bunch of poop and still not the right info!!! Now I have been named 'not nice' and we
are still stuck with the basic comment I made in the first place.
This is the garden across the way - it is shaped like a champagne bottle - not
opened today so we can't verify that!!!
Ahhh there's that room again ....hhhhmmm what was it??
Ahhh this is the garden room because it looks out onto the beautiful
Japanese garden. Some Japanese dude brought over a tree many years ago
that still adorns the garden today!!
This is Grandad Moet
This is Mr Moet the son
This is the grandson
This is one aisle of 128 kilometres of cellars under Moet Chandon.
The cask in the background is a gift of port from Louis the something.
Now stands proudly in one of the first aisles you go down to see the cellars.
This alcove holds 28 000 bottles of champagne!! Yes that's
right 28 000, just this one alcove and there was alcove after alcove: amazing
Better picture of the cask with plaque saying who it was from -you can
zoom that if you like :)
Oh crap oops my fault not gift from Louis at all but from Moet's friend
Napoleon!!
This the manual gorging - where each and every one of these
vintage bottles is turned a quarter turn by had; a person will complete
8000 bottles a day - what a job but all Dom Perignon vintage bottles are done this way.
As are the black label but they're behind lock and key!!!
Gorging is done to ensure the sediment in the bottle falls to the top to be extracted and
the bottle then corked :)
This is an alcove full of very very dusty bottles!
There's even a Mary in the cellars of Moet Chandon - she's everywhere!!
As we were passing through the aisles we noticed some
of the dusty bottles had been written on - well
you know finger writing in the dust.
And seeing this one made us smile a lot - this is for you Nancy!!! (from New Mexico)
Promise we didn't so it - but we were very amused!
Steps down to the cellars
This is the export area - very creepy area with weird lighting.
Imperial Champagne tasting - one glass in each hand.
And the little one is not there!
Two of the Imperial tastings with the three Imperial bottles.
The Imperial Collection and it is much nicer that the Traditional (which is saying a lot).
And now the glasses have gone...hhhmmmm fabulous!!!
HMMMMMMM - that is better than nice.
Cheers
Leaving the cellars after the wine tasting.
Cellar door prices are very reasonable but still mightily expensive.
This is as big a latte as I can handle but I'm telling you after
the two champagnes I was bloody flying!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not champagne but really nifty container for yoghurt would you believe.
Since then we have seen these recycled in bars for tapas and things
Eegs in Epernay
Champagne is the theme obviously
This was an interesting family tree of the Moet Chandon family
done with crests
A beautiful stained glass window downstairs from the shop
Oh I love to pinch an arse!!
You don't look too far before you see vineyards. All of Moet Chandon is made
from grapes from this area - 20% is from Moet Chandon owned vineyards and the rest is from the local area just for them!!!! The Dom Perignon Black Label and vintage uses the original vineyard of the monks.
Jealous! Hope you had a drink for me!
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