Campanile Chateau Thierry Château-Thierry

... were walking out with carts full of Cases of wine, not to mention all the cheese, fois gras, ham, mushrooms, and other french goodies that were up for grabs. We spent a piddly 5 hours drinking wine, and now have a much better "education" of French wine. But after a couple hours, food was definitely in order. Istead of opting for the 9 euro fois gras sandwich, we got the pate en croute, which we soon found out is not supposed to be eaten ...

... of our stay in Reims was at an art deco brasserie (many buildings in Reims were reconstructed after World War I, and a style of the times was art deco) called Boulingrin. It was suggested to us by a girl we met at the laundromat who had just graduated from Pitt University and was living in Reims teaching English. The meal turned out to be great – foie gras, escargot, steak frites, scallops St-Jacques, tartar, the best mousse au chocolat I’ve ever ...

... through a little chicken wire, we figured, why not? For the record, it was totally worth it…and we were very careful not to fall off any ancient walls or mess up anything historical, promise.

After eating lunch inside the town (peanut butter and jelly! Seems not too exciting, but when peanut butter is as expensive as it is here, trust me, this is a treat), we headed off to our second stop, Laon...read on!

... and waited for about 10 minutes before the tour started. One of the amazing parts about the Pommery is that they not only house champagne in their cellars (or 'caves') but art is also displayed. While we were there a more modern artists had displays in many of the corridors as well as the cellars including a dress designed by the designer of the mini skirt and a race-car suspended from the ceiling.

Originally the caves were minbed for chalk that was used ...

... entrance to France is not the most scenic but it gets better as you get on the motor way and start to see some of the countryside. It helped that it was a gorgeously sunny day with only a crisp wind. You could see that Autumn was on the way as every now and then trees and bushes had a sprinkling of light gold and orange, making the drive seem more beautiful.

By lunchtime we had reached Reims our destination for the weekend. Reims ...

... onto the highway was crawling, and continued to crawl for several more minutes once we were on the highway.

We did eventually hit the speed limit and at our second or third toll booth, mom realized one of her wallets was missing. Luckily she had separated her many currencies into different wallets and the one missing was the one with a little bit of Canadian money. Unluckily it also ...

-We drove through Reims on the way back to Maastricht and stopped at the Pommery estate for a tour of its cellars. It felt like we were spelunking in the underground cellars, which are more similar to mining caves, housing over 20 million bottles of champagne. It was even complete with riddling racks, though they don't use that technique anymore. After the tour, we had a tasting, which ended in purchasing four bottles that complete with the Pommery logo straws... weird french people.

... with more prior research, I decided to leave at about 4pm. The traffic was pretty manic but I made good time towards Annecy - a town I already knew as being picturesque on a lake nestled under mountains. Typical me, I was making good time so I thought I'd press onto Geneva. Here's a geography lesson now. I thought that Geneva was half French and half Swiss. It even indicates that the border runs through the middle of Lake Geneva. However, this is not the ...

... petite fours. I beleive I was born and raised in the wrong country, and am currently making my plans for relocation. After dinner we went for a stroll along the riverbank that runs through the property of 32 hectares adn saw an otter pottering around in the water. We went and said goodnight to our horse friends that are in a lovely paddock right in the middle of the estate. The grounds are manicured ...

We had our cooking class today. We were taught by a professional and famous chef named Marie. We made everything from mushrooms from appetizer to dessert and it was wonderful! We are bringing home the reciepes and hope to be able to find many of the mushrooms at home so that we can make them for you!!! Yummy! We are flying home in the morning and will be home by 9:00pm.