Touring Champagne Country...

Since we last wrote we've done one of Jamie's most favourite parts of the trip.... Champagne... On route to the Champagne region, we came across one of the French peoples favourite pass times.... a strike. We were driving quite happily down the road to a nice little village when we found a roundabout that had been completely blocked by local tractors. Apparently the farmers had the shits about something so decided to cut off the town in every direction. We spent the next 45 mins working our way around the tractors and driving onto footpaths etc... We eventually made our way through although Tom (our TomTom) was not all that impressed with our handy work. We arrived in Bouzy (how appropriate) the first night and stayed on one of the vineyards that are part of the France Passion deal, the name was Remy Galichet. They produce champagne so it was brilliant to be able to turn up, have a few taste tests, then buy a bottle and enjoy it in the vineyard. The town Bouzy was really quite small and most places were closed once we arrived, so it was a fairly early night.


The next day we headed to Eperney which was recommended by Mum and Dad Griffo. Jamie was very excited to see the biggest champagne houses in the world. On arrival we were surprised at how down to earth the town and people were. We went in expecting that there was going to be a certain pretentious feel and everyone would be dressed up with nowhere to go. What we found was a town that was very proud of their champagne heritage, but not full of themselves. We did the tour of Moet & Chandon (and learnt that YES, the French do pronounce it with the T!) which was brilliant. We didn’t actually know that the Moet & Chandon house also produce the more expensive Dom Perignon. The tour included a walk through the caves which in total cover 100Km. When asked the question, “how many bottles are actually down here?”, the tour guide explained that they were not allowed to tell people, but she could say that there were more bottles in that cellar then there are French people in France (Google it :)).
After visiting Epernay, we stayed the night in another vineyard that produced champagne. Once again we taste tested, then purchased another few bottles. We enjoyed another bottle (this one was even nicer) in an orchard of cherry and apple trees that the vineyard have for their private use. They told us to pick whatever we wanted which was lovely of them. Words couldn’t describe how beautiful this night was, sitting in the vineyard grounds drinking champagne and watching the sun go down over acres of vines. We highly recommend it. :)

Today we managed the dreaded Parisian traffic and made it to our camp ground 8km from the centre of Paris. The camp ground is fairly ordinary, but still manage to charge 37Euro for a powered site as they are the only camp ground within 100km of the city. Jamie is disgusted in their lack of customer service so far and keeps talking about how it would be different if she was in charge..... Whatever... Today we’ve spent the day wandering the Champes Elysees which has been wonderful. Tomorrow, being Andrew’s birthday will be filled with spoiling him with gifts and kisses (being the most romantic city in the world).
Love A&J xoxo