Ibis Hotel - Epernay Épernay

... 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 ...

He Said:<br><br>Of all the stops planned for this trip, Reims is probably the one I was most looking forward to visiting. First of all, it was a new region of France for us &#8211; Champagne. Second, the town offered a little bit of everything &#8211; history, art, and, of course, the wine. I'll begin with the wine.<br><br>Though the tools have changed, the process of creating champagne has remained the same since it was first consumed by the region&#8217;s monks ...

... Cafes flank both sides of the streets along with shops and such. The festival tents were placed in the center of the road with two corridors running parallel for pedestrian traffic. We had not anticipated a festival but we enjoyed the many different booths from honey to flowers and even farm animals! <br><br>After strolling through the tents we made our way a few more blocks to the tourists center for the town. Luckily the woman in the office was extremely ...

... br><br>The channel tunnel trip back was not as smooth as the crossing over as we were delayed for a couple of hours - made worse by the fact that all we wanted to do was have a cuppa tea, slice of marmite toast and climb into a warm bed. <br><br>Was it a good trip? Naturally - selective memory is a great thing, especially when my most fond memory is watching those delicate bubbles escaping to the top of MY champagne glass :)<br><br><br><br>

... around in the vicinity for at least another 20 minutes.<br><br>When we got to the rental office we were helped by a young man with excellent English. After some more time we loaded up our shiny new Ford Focus and drove out of Paris. Driving out of Paris is easier said than done, however. It really is a big and busy city. It took over an hour to get out. Even though it was midday by now, the ...

... We had seen the usual sight of people wandering along the street with a baguette clutched under their arm, so kept walking until we found the boulangerie and bought a "demi gross" - half a large-diameter baguette. We also passed a wine merchant so bought a bottle of vin du pays for only 3 euros. We took our goodies back to Parva Domus and decided to have lunch sitting on the back terrace. It had been a sunny morning but clouding over, and it looked quite ...

... the platform, so needed to go back to do so. Then we couldn't find our seats anywhere. It turned out that there were a few seats at the very front of the carriage (to the left as you entered), while the majority, which we were searching, were to the right. We finally found the correct seats and moved our cases to be nearby. It was very comfortable, and a quick trip of around an hour to Reims. On arrival at Reims (which the French pronounce like ...

... Moet, and you can see all the bottles & magnums of Champagne maturing away. The tour was very interesting & informative ... and the little tasty at the end was pretty good too! Did you know that they have 26km of tunnels under their building to store their Champagne in ... at up to 25m underground?! Now that we've had our taste of bubbly ... Paris, here we come!

... french) starts about now. We have toured the houses of Moet &amp; Chandon and Mercier and seen just a small portion of the hundreds of kilometres of cellars (or caves) that run under the Avenue de Champagne. Off to Fountainbleau soon then Paris and Normandy before heading south...we are watching Band of Brothers in preparation for the D Day beaches...yes the van has a portable DVD player! Take it easy DC &amp; SK

... hard work. The green jersey for King of the Mountain certainly went to Ken (Peter's Dad) who rode non stop up every hill we came across during the 6 days. He was a hill riding machine! It was a very pretty ride through a lot of the vineyards around the area. Just before our stop for lunch near Taissy we had the first stack of the trip - no prizes for guessing who, some would say that I am my father's daughter (ie. clumbsy). I was getting a bit freaked out by some of the ...