Hotel Jeanne D'Arc Reims

... 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 ...

... to the bottle leading to the wine’s second fermentation, and the bottles are left to age in the myriad of caves beneath the cities of Reims and Epernay. Over time, the bottles are twisted and rotated upward so the yeasty sediment enters the mouth of the bottle. When it reaches the tip, the bottle is flash-frozen, the sediment is removed, the bottle is topped off, and then it is finally corked.

After we learned all this, we drank.

Almost ...

... quick peeks of it over the rooftops as you approach, and there are great visas once you’re at the top. One thing we noticed was how skeletal it looked; the amount of arches and thin columns gave its towers a spindly appearance, or as spindly an appearance you can have when you’re talking about something made of tons of stone. According to my friend, it looked like it would be ...

... Canadian Bar. The Moose we were told plays Gator games often and in anticipation for the upcoming game on Saturday, Angela and I wanted to make sure. We went in for one beer but after talking with the (English speaking) bartenders and meeting a few people we had a couple more rounds. We got home around 3am which would explain my headache the next morning, however please don't mistake this as a complaint because Angela and I did not pay a cent for the drinks ...

... 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 ...

... your cathedrals, and your Parisian monuments. I as an American think of France being the connaisseur of cheese, fine wine and baguettes. This statement may be right, as France is well known for over 360+ different (delicious) cheeses. Accompanying these cheeses are countless assortments of many fine wines and breads. At the grocery store, I often spend more time in the cheese and wine ailes because I go through the entire ...

... their great cheese and smoked ham hence, quiche Lorraine), and the Meuse river. As I'm writing this blog, we are entering apart of the French / German countryside that has been fought over for hundreds of years, changing hands several times, invaded, fought over and relinquished so now the area is a mixture of all the best of both countries. The hillsides are lush green giving a grand backdrop to the white cows grazing (which, btw, I'm convinced they ...

... after lunch and I had no firm destination and or places pre-arranged to stay at. Reims, my next planned stop, was another 300kms away. I figured, it's early, I can make it to Paris and spend the evening there and tomorrow morning. I arrive in Versailles on the western edge of Paris and traffic is nuts. It's extremely nice out and everybody is taking advantage of the beautiful fall day. I'm still dressed up in the full gear I had early this morning when I ...

Carleigh and Fred arrived yesterday afternoon and I take them on a a short tour of the Reims and Champagne. We start with Piper Heidsieck, where Carleigh and Fred are left wondering if we took a wrong turn and ended up in Disneyland Paris. It was not my ideal start for the day as Carleigh (and to a lesser extent Fred) knows wine tourism and I had hoped that we could start at Pommery, but alas there were no tours until 3pm. After our Piper ...

... onwards). Its an impressive sight, but James and Emma were muchmore interested in the dump truck and digger working on paving the courtyard just outside the main door. They were totally totally engrossed and could have stayed there all day, but we had to get home for lunch. It was a lazy afternoon as we were still tired after another early morning and we all retired early to try and catch up on some zzz's.