Eric and I left Ellie and Dan at the Brussels airport, and set our sights on France. We stopped for a little brunch of beer at the Scourmont Abbey, where Chimay Trappist beers are produced. Eric had a miscommunication with the waitress, who spoke only French, and wound up with four beers instead of one, so by the time we left, he was enjoying himself. We also tried four of their cheeses which are made by the monks. Quite tasty, although, most of the cheese I’ve eaten thus far has blended together in my mind. I had their lightest beer, which is only sold at the Auberge de Poteaupré and consumed by the monks. Called Chimay Dorée, it is a 4.8% ale, and is light in color and easy to drink. Our beer needs fufilled, we spent the rest of the day driving around the Belgium and French countrysides and generally enjoying ourselves.
Our final destination was in the Champagne region of France, and we were not let down by its cuteness. We arranged a bed and breakfast through the tourist information office in the town of Hautvillers, the home of the Abbey where champagne-making was influenced by Dom Pierre Pérignon. Down the hill we went, until we wound up in the town of Ay, and settled into our lovely room. We had a nice dinner at a local brasserie and then wandered around for a bit before returning to the room.
The next morning, we visited Moët & Chandon, which is purportedly the best known, and they claim, the tastiest. They had a cave tour, and still make champagne the traditional way, by hand harvesting the grapes and hand riddling the bottles and so on. I do love champagne, and getting to walk down in the cellers with a ton of bottles of Dom Pérignon was a treat. We had a tasting of three of their Moët & Chandon champagnes (but not Dom, sadly) and it was nice. I don’t think I have a well enough developed palette to have it influence all of my future champagne drinking experiences, but it was tasty.
We left Champange and headed south towards Troyes. We spent a bit of time circling the nearby lakes and national forest, which were nice. The lake water was very cold when we dipped our toes in, and there were a few people enjoying themselves on the shore. It really reminded us of Round Valley Reservoir in New Jersey. We had considered finding a hotel in the surrounding towns, but all were literally shuttered up tight. We found our way back to Troyes, which apparently is the knitwear capital of France, and got a hotel room at The Grand Hotel, which is nothing of the sort. Right next to the train station, on a corner which we later determined was next to a corner full of prostitutes, it was in direct line of the barrage of announcements which were broadcast loudly in French starting at 6am from the station. And I found a bug in the bed this morning, which I squished, and believe it might have been a bedbug. Which I was not excited about. However, there was Internet, and it was affordable enough, and we needed a place to sleep. We had a nice dinner in Troyes and wandered around the downtown area, which had a lot of half-timbered building that looked like they were about to tip over.
So far, the trip has been great. Not particularly full of tourist activities, but still enjoyable in a guilty pleasure sort of way. The countryside has been fantastic to watch roll by, with more shades of green than someone who hadn’t taken Marian Galzenski’s color class would have thought possible.
Today we are off to Montparnasse, near Paris. Then the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and all things Parisian!