Champagne area of France

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This area in northern France is known as the Champagne region. We had a nice 4-day weekend in May available and decided to check out a smaller and quainter area of France since we had only seen Paris. Our friends Rick and Elizabeth and their dog Lily drove the 4 hours to this area. As we got closer to these small towns or villages, the landscape went from flat and green to rolling hills covered with a patchwork quilt of yellow, green, and brown fields. It was a truly pretty site. We drove into the town of Reims and found our hotel, which was actually a small and cheap, but nice apartment. Our friends from Dubuque that live in Belgium met us there and we headed out to check out the sites. We walked through the city and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. We had a nice lunch sitting outside. We continued on to see the “Notre Dame” of Reims-a replica of the original. It actually was quite similar. We then walked through the city up towards a champagne house, only to find that it we missed the last tour and the staff would not even allow us to sit down and have a glass. So, we took the long journey back through town and found another champagne house. We ordered a bottle of champagne and enjoyed while Lily gulped down her water and then barfed. Later on we went out for dinner and just enjoyed the evening and atmosphere of this town. The next day we took a train to Epernay, another small town. We took a quick walk through town before getting picked up by a grape grower that took us to his vineyard. Throughout our little walk through, we came across a tribute of Dom Perignon.

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So, the owner of the vineyard picked us up and drove us through a few tiny villages to his place. He set us up with mountain bikes and we took off to ride through the vineyards. It was quite hilly and some parts were difficult to ride, but the views were breathtaking. Navigating the map was pretty funny, as the only markers were pictures of the corners where you were supposed to turn. Most of the corners looked the same, so we were very surprised when the guys actually figured it out and we did the right course. We ate lunch on one of the hillsides and then went back to the winery. Here, we sampled 3 different champagnes. The weather was fabulous and we just sat for the rest of the afternoon enjoying the warm and sunny weather and trying different types of champagne. We headed back to Reims for the evening and enjoyed sitting outside having dinner and chatting with each other. On Monday morning we all headed back home, feeling relaxed and refreshed before wrapping up the last 4 weeks of the school year.