Sunday 23rd Aug
It had been a long time (for us) since we went abroad and we were both excited to get out of London. We were off to Champange, France to celebrate Lous upcoming 30th birthday in style! We were booked on the first Eurostar so had to get an early tube which we shared with die hard party goers that had been out all night and were waiting around for the first tube home!
The train journey to Paris was lovely and relaxing, Hamish surprised Lou with champagne truffles and mini bottles of bubbly to kick things off which was nice! After arriving in Paris, waited for ages to get our rental car and then we were off - well kind of... Hamish managed to cheat death by immediately forgetting we were in Europe and turning onto the wrong lane - directly into oncoming traffic! But after a quick evasive maneuver the rest of the drive was pretty straight uneventful.
The cottage itself was gorgeous, very old school with old furniture but charming all the same, complete with a garden out the back with a raspberry plant dripping with fresh raspberries. We did a quick drive around to get our bearings and found a World War One memorial commemorating the first Marne battle. The French parliament decided to have this enormous milestone (more than 100ft high) built shortly after the end of World War One. This monument represents the courage, suffering and sacrifice of soldiers who fought the battle of the Marne. It looks like a giant carrot.
We didn't really know what to do for dinner as there was literally nothing open in the nearest town, that shamefully we resorted to a kebab shop….and judging by the number of locals in there as well, it wasn't a bad option!
We had an early night in the enormous super king size bed.
Highlight: The cottage was everything we were hoping for, and our host was so lovely.
Lowlight: Nothing being open! The French rigidly stick to nothing opening on a Sunday and everything closing between 12 and 2.30pm.
Interesting Fact: Hamish has driven on the wrong side of the road many times before, but always seems to take a wee while to settle into it!
Monday 24th Aug
We decided today on driving to Epernay, home to the famous L 'Avenue de Champagne (The Champagne Avenue). Its name derives from the presence of many leading champagne houses such as Moët et Chandon, Mercier and De Castellane. Residents say that this avenue is the most expensive in the world, more so than the Champs-Élysées in Paris, because of the millions of bottles of champagne stored in the kilometres of chalk cellars beneath it.
We kick started our Champagne education with a tasting at Mercier Champagne house, here we learned about how they make champagne but also how they marketed themselves in the early days. Some say that marketing in its traditional sense (advertising and product placement) really started with Champagne houses. For example, Mercier produced the first advertising film, and they also built this enormous oak barrel containing 200,000 bottles of champagne which had to be pulled by bulls to feature at World Fair in Paris in 1889.
We continued down Champagne Avenue and wandered into Moet & Chandon, and had a browse (no purchasing!). We had a yummy lunch at a local bistro, and then it was back to the car via another tasting at a smaller less well known House called Michel Gourmand, where we tasted the difference between champagne stored in metal vats compared to oak barrels in its initial resting period.
We had a leisurely drive home and chilled out and Lou cooked an amazing dinner accompanied by the wine that our host gave us and played some cards and then watched Gravity.
Highlight: Champagne Avenue was truly awesome, the buildings and the gardens alone were great but knowing there were thousands of bottles underground made it even better!
Lowlight: We hadn't quite realised that the distances between these towns was quite big, so a lot more time in the car than we thought.
Interesting Fact: The vineyards in Bouzy are classified as Grand Cru which means they produce the absolute best quality of grape. The lowest rated villages are rated at 80%. Premier crus villages are rated between 90 and 99% while the highest rated villages, with 100% ratings are Grand crus.
Tuesday 25th Aug
Unfortunately Lou couldn't sleep in so she hopped up and did some exercise while old man Hamish slept in.
We had a big day ahead of us, driving to Reims, the man city of the Champagne region. First up was the Pommery tasting. This was probably the best tasting we did; they had an amazing cellar which doubled up as a modern art gallery which looked awesome. Their premium champagne was Cuvée Louise, named after the founder of the House. It was super expensive so we passed on buying one of those bottles. Save that for a special occasion!
We had a nice wee lunch from a local bakery and bought some little treats for later – a raspberry tart and an opera cake.
We hit up the supermarket for some supplies, including £15 bottles of champagne! and we then tried to have a wander round the Tattinger House but you had to pay loads for a tasting so we passed.
Then it was our tasting & tour of Verve Cliquot, which was awesome. We learned loads, like the origins of the name (Verve is French for widow, and Madame Cliquot took the reins of the Champagne house when she was left a widow at the age of 27 and made the Champagne house into what it is today). And the meaning of the logo (Christian symbol of the anchor and the comet which appeared in the sky when she shipped her first load of champagne off to Russia which really opened up new markets for her). We toured the cellars and discovered that they were used as military hospitals during World War One.
Highlight: The cellars in Pommery were so cool, and a really good tour.
Lowlight: Tattinger was disappointing and Hamish beat Lou in every single game of cards we played.
Interesting fact: Divers found a ship that had sunk somewhere between France and Russia about 10 years ago and they found crates of champagne the mid-18th century which were still 'good' as in they hadn't gone flat. There were bottles from Verve Cliquot and Pommery and so they were gifted back to the Houses for display.
Wednesday 26th Aug
We had a nice sleep in, before Lou made French toast (spot the French theme here!). Today we wanted to do something a bit different so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful natural scenery and drive to the national park.
The main centre we were looking for was closed (this was another theme of the holiday) but we took a chance and started walking anyway, we walked through forests and vineyards for a few hours before tucking into our packed lunch. We didn't see any fellow hikers and we discovered why when we got home and translated the signs we kept seeing, it basically translated into "Danger, deer shooting, no access". So that was lucky.
Lowlight: The weather was a bit rubbish and it would have been better if it wasn't so muddy!
Interesting fact: French marshmallows aren't as good as NZ ones.
Thursday 27th Aug
Once again Lou was up early so she picked some raspberries and we had fresh fruit & yogurt to breakfast. Today we headed back into Reims to have a better look around the city, primarily the Reims cathedral which had almost been completely destroyed in World War One but they are still in the process of restoring and repairing it. Some of the stained glass windows had a modern feel to it which was interesting. The cathedral celebrated its 800 year anniversary in 2011.
We then went over to the Palais du Tau which is like a mini royal palace where every French king since the third century had been crowned so there were a lot of crowns and cloaks etc to have a look at. We continued our wander around the city and found a nice cafe in the sun then wandered back to the Cathedral to have a tour up the tower, which was all in French and looked very informative. Managed to see some great views.
A brief rain shower didn't dampen our spirits and we had an obligatory tasting of the blanc du blanc variety of champagne which was really nice. We also stopped in a wee chocolate shop and picked up some samples.
We found our way back to the car and came home, the sun had come out so we read for a bit and then had some leftovers for dinner.
With no TV we drank a bottle of Demi sec champagne which was the sweeter one with a big cheese board, and played cards and went to bed very full and maybe a little tipsy!
Highlight: Reims was a great wee city, big enough to be interesting and small enough to wander around.
Lowlight: Finding carparking with our outdated GPS was an adventure in itself every time we hopped in the car.
Interesting fact: So the 3 grapes that make up champagne are black Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier but also white Chardonnay. The Blanc du blanc champagne is purely made up of the Chardonnay grapes and the demi sec refers to the amount of sugar that is added to the champagne before bottling, demi sec is a lot sweeter.
Friday 28th Aug
We wanted to do something different today so we scoured the map and decided to do the three hour drive to Lille which is in Northern France. It was a place of significance in World War One and Lou's great great uncle Alexander Sloan Baillie was buried there.
It was a beautiful sunny morning and we drove through patches of fog until we joined the motorway and headed north for Lille.The drive was uneventful apart from paying almost 20 euros in toll charges (but the roads were very good).
Lille was a lot bigger then we imagined and a lot like other European cities with a big town square and opera buildings. We didn't really know where to go and neither did the information centre girl so we took our chances and walked 20 mins or so to the city cemetery. Once we got there we realised this wasn't it so we bought some data on Hamish's phone and checked James's email and he pointed us in the right direction (shot Jimmy).
The little town of Armentieres is where we wanted to go. Once we found the cemetery it was very straight forward in finding his grave and quite sad too. So sad to think of all the young men who were killed a million miles from home in a war that wasn't theirs. The cemetery was in good nick and the French had donated that land forever so that was nice.
We started the long drive home and got back just after 6pm.We felt a little restless so we devised a bit of a fitness circuit and did some exercise before chilling out a bit in the sun (finally it had come out!)
Lou cooked up a lovely pasta dish and we toasted our holiday with a nice red before hitting the hay.
Highlight: Finally finding the grave, it was really nice to see.
Lowlight: Wandering around the Lille cemetery was far from ideal.
Interesting fact: 18,000 NZ soldiers died in World war One, this was at a time when the population was just over 1 million.
Saturday 29th Aug
Our last morning and it was a gloriously sunny day, we had breakfast outside in the sun and felt sad that we had to leave. We packed up and said goodbye to Dominique and did a bit of a drive around the Cote du Blanc region and stopped at a little champagne house and bought a bottle for about 15 euros - bargain!
What a way to say goodbye to Lou's twenties!
