8/7/11- 11/7/11 Challons-en-Champagne and Reims, FRANCE

Avenue de Marechal, Challons-en-Champagne

So - French tolls are really expensive, it cost us almost $50 Euro to use the tunnel under the Alps between Italy and France, and by the end of the day we had spent about $100 Euro to get to Beaune (our stop for one night).

Anyway, we had decided to use Challons-en-Champagne as our base to visit Riems for Champagne tasting. We thought it would be better to be far away from Reims but close to a train station, rather than staying in Reims, where the nearest campground was about 16kms away from the city. We have done this before (Torino, for example), but it didn't quite go to plan this time.

Challons-en-Champagne is a lovely, traditional little French town. Our highlights of this visit were the town fair they had on Sunday, and the rotisserie chicken van at the campground ($6 for a whole chicken. Yum)

I assume this is a French super hero who saved Challons-en-Champagne from aliens from outer space.

The Cathedral at Challon-en-Champagne, with the river and fair in the foreground. Gothic to the side, but a weird neo-classical front.

See?

Pirates are buried here, probably. I wish they would bury the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise- that movie series has lost its way somewhat.

My worst ordering mistake yet. That's the face of a guy who has accidentally ordered half a litre of pre-mix shandy - don't buy 'Panache', it's not beer. It is also only 1.2% alcohol. 

He had to keep turning them towards each other or else they would wander off. They were so little they could only just walk. Very cute and quite funny.

This is a 'saucisse americaine', apparently Americans like to put fries on top of their sausage inna bun. Quite right too.

Our trip to Reims started well, as we managed to hustle out of bed and get to the train station by 10:00am. Unfortunately, the next train was at 11:45 - and by the time we got to the Mumm's champagnery, the only tour they had availability on was the 5:30pm one. That was OK - we used the opportunity to have a wander around the town in the afternoon.

The champagne tour was very interesting - champagne facts (which I can remember)
 - They have 25kms of tunnels under the winery, and the temperature is a constant 12 degrees.
 - They can only use three different kinds of grapes to make champagne, but the Mumm's bubbly is actually a blend taken from 70+ vineyards.
- They have to slowly rotate and tip the fermenting bottles to get the sediment into the neck. They then freeze the neck of the bottles (and the sediment), take the cork off and take the sediment out.

This is a Roman arch that used to extend over the main road into Reims.

Reims town hall.

The waiter opened this enormous bottle of wine for the table next door. I always assumed these massive bottles were fake, and full of water or something.

Reims town square.

Reims Cathedral.

....And here is the moment Jane had 'Cathedral Overload'. She has just finished having a massive yawn and eyeball rub, and I think she is reading the paper.

There were some cool windows though....

This is a partly uncovered Roman Cryptoportic (semi submerged U shaped portico/veranda thing).  I included it because I like the word 'cryptoportic'.

Bottles of Champagne - the angle they are tilted on gets more acute from the bottom of the rack to the top.

Wall of Booze. The sign says 'please remove bottles from the top first'.

Not the best photo - but this is the 'reference library' where they keep past vintages. The head wine maker periodically tastes them and tries to get the new vintages as close as possible.

We had a tasting, and of course bought some champagne! Next stop, Paris