Troyes

Our next two nights were in Troyes.  We arrived in the town towards the end of the day, to stay in a B&B.  The owner explained that he couldn't feed us dinner since the mayor wants all the visitors to eat in the town restaurants.  I noticed the Ferrari under covers in the car port; it belongs to the owner, but he doesn't take it out much because it doesn't negotiate speed bumps.

We dined in an ordinary créperie, where they managed to get two things wrong out of the items we ordered, which I guess is actually quite impressive in its own way.

It was also at Troyes that we had the best meal out of the holiday, in a restaurant called La Table de Francois.  We stumbled upon it while we were looking for a fish restaurant that we had seen the day before.  Good find.

The architecture in the town centre features much timber framing, a building technique that I thought was mostly confined to Normandy.

And the ring road features some strange 3D art.

And of course there is more, including a cinema where we saw "The Martian".  Fine film, and good take on the book, that we have also read.

Hacking about

After our stay in Dolancourt we set off to explore the area a little.  We went first to the lakes "Les Grands Lacs de la Forêt d'Orient".  Huge great artificial lakes, used for watersports and to manage the water levels in the Seine that flows nearby.  After a hot, dry summer, they were nearly empty, so not much in the way of waterbourne entertainment.

We trolled on to Bayel where there is a museum of crystal glass blowing.  I discovered on the way out that I shouldn't have taken any photographs, so I'd better not share them with you here.  The crystal blowers were imported from Mourano, Italy, because it was less expensive than buying the crystal from the makers there.  And the Louvre used a lot of crystal.

We followed more of the Route de Champagne down to lunch at Essoyes, where we ignored the Renoir museum and went for the Champagne outlet.   We didn't like the Champagne there - too acid for our taste, although the lady in the shop tolds us that the problem was our lack of experience.

Then, on to the Champagne that we knew we liked, at René Jolly.  They grow their own grapes in a 14 hectare vineyard around Landreville.  After a brief tasting to confirm our opinions we bought some.  Dear reader, don't take my advice on buying Champagne, but on the other hand, do feel free to try this one to see if you like it.  I think the effort will be rewarded.  Don't be put off by their website.

Then we rolled on to Troyes.  "Troyes" is pronounced like the French "trois", so it gives the Google voice recognition software some problems.   At least, it does with my accent......

Moulin du Landion

After our stay in Epernay, we trolled down south to Dolancourt.   We drove there along parts of the Route du Champagne, a tourist route that takes you through pretty scenery and via lots of the smaller Champagne producers.  It's well signposted, and worth the detour if you're in a mood for exploring. As we moved south, it was clear that less and less land was devoted to Champagne grape culture, more towards vegetables and cattle feed.  The valleys sides are less steep and the expanse of clay at the bottom is wider.

We stayed in the Moulin du Landion.  The water wheel wasn't turning, due to a lack of water, and it can't be used for anything useful, but it was interesting to see the mechanism.

It was in the restaurant there that we had a bottle of Champagne from the René Jolly producer.  We had chosen quite disparate dishes, and the wine list identified the René Jolly blanc de noirs as "suitable for accompanying any dish", so we selected that one.  It has a hint of sweetness despite being described as brut, with enough of a fruit flavour to give it some force.  It did, indeed, go reasonably well with everything we chose.  It was more of a stretch for Anita's steak than my fish, but good none the less.  We resolved to visit the producer.

Bent trees

Not far from Epernay is a small forest featuring Beech trees with a genetic mutation that causes them to grow in short, twisted shapes.  You can visit the forest and it has been marked out with trails and tracks.   The trees are now surrounded by barriers so you can't carve your initials into the bark, or damage the low-hanging branches by walking on them.

The wood is known by the name of the Faux de Verzy, Fau being the old French name for Beech, and Verzy being the nearest town.  (Champagne also features the villages of Bouzy and Dizy, which I thought was cute)

The forest walks claim to be suitable for people with various handicaps, including blind people, but I must admit I struggled to understand how blind people would benefit from a collection of trees that you can't touch.

However, we had a pleasant walk in a quiet woods, a short break in our Champagne hunting.

Champagne street

In Epernay, the Champagne houses are mostly located on Champagne street; Avenue de Champagne. It's where the tourist office is too, (with very nice patterned glass doors) so we started at the tourist office end, and strolled down the street.  The big names were there, as expected, and some we'd never heard of.  There was a group of people outside of the Moët & Chandon establishment, and the shop looked open.  We wandered into the compound to visit the shop, but the reason for the people present was that someone had set off the fire alarm, and everyone was outside.  We wandered on.

There was an air of general celebration about the buildings, since the street has just been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  There were "Thank you" flags to be seen, the street looked exceptionally clean and the buildings were spotless.

The Champagne house that we visited was the De Castellane, not actually on Avenue de Champagne, but just aside from the end of it, because they have a tower you can go up and survey the surrounding countryside.

They also have a museum of Champagne-making, and one of printing, since the printing of bottle labels is an integral part of Champagne production.  I'm fascinated by the straightforward concept that these complicated mechanical things actually worked, and that offset litho and Linotype machines were in regular commercial use while I was growing up.

Unfortunately the day was rather misty and the glass windows of the tower had condensation, so the views from the tower were limited.  But you can get an idea of the intensity of grape farming in the area, from the pocket-handkerchief-sized patch in the photo.

French, not French

In the little town of Hautvillers, we saw two things of note, one of which struck us as typically French, the other as counter to almost everything similar in France that we had encountered before.

The Champagne tasting and sale shop, at 3, rue Dom Perginon proudly annouces that it is open, amonst other times, 10h30 - 18h00, all week except Mondays, all year with certain exceptions November - March.  Except, apparently, right when we were there.  Very French.

The public toilets were exemplary.  Clean, spotless even, accessible, and with the gentlemens' urinals shielded from prudish view by batwing doors.  Clearly catering for tourists who expect nothing less, especially, I imagine, our American cousins.  Not French at all.

Hautvillers

The little village of Hautvillers can be said to be a place of pilgrimage: it is the town where Dom Perignon lived much of his life and was buried, and is a must-see tourist destination for this reason.

As well as inventing the drink Champagne, Dom Pierre Perignon is credited with making various improvements to its manufacture.  Before he investigated the problem, about 2/3rds of the bottles holding the fizzy wine would explode during the fermentation process.  I know the problem.  My youthful experiments with ginger beer had the same result - it makes a complete mess of the bathroom and wastes all that effort.   So he replaced the French glass bottles with Belgian glass to good effect.  He also replaced the corks with Spanish cork, another good move.

Since the town is a bit thin on attractions other than Dom Perignon's tomb, they make a thing of their metal house signs.  They're not bad; they claim to have (if I remember rightly) 140 of them.  Here's a few.