Paris, Chartres, Champagne Country and Giverny 2019
Sep 12th, 2019, 07:11 PM
#21
Our friend had asked the manager of the little place they like near their apartment for a restaurant within walking distance and he recommended La Petite Perigourdine. It certainly isn't big or fancy but it worked for us. I did not try to find any reviews before we went so I just now looked. It seems people either love it or hate it.
I like that place a lot.
Sep 13th, 2019, 07:30 AM
#23
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Day 5.
Spoiler Alert – we had a great time today. About 3 weeks before our trip I bought and printed our train tickets from home using the very easy Oui.sncf app. Quick and easy Uber to Gare d l’Est to catch the 9:28 TGV to Reims. We easily found our 2nd class seats and settled in for the 46 minute ride to Reims. I still feel like a little kid when I get to ride on a train – especially one that reached 181 mph. My Waze app would not display the speed above 124 mph but my wife found an app that showed us going 181 mph at one point. Gotta love the trains in Europe!
We were going to spend one night in Reims so we wanted a hotel within easy walking distance of the train station that could store our luggage while we explored the town until we could check in. We stayed at the Hotel Continental (a 3 minute walk from the station) and we were very happy with the hotel and the staff. We dropped off the luggage and the clerk offered us a coffee which we gladly accepted. Since we were so close to the Musee de la Reddition we walked to it. Interesting to see the small room with the actual table where the historic signing took place and especially the handwritten notes by General Eisenhower. Less than an hour later we were in a taxi on our way to Pommery for our first tour.
Before this trip we did not know much about champagne and there are so many tour options it is almost overwhelming but we finally decided on Pommery and Taittinger. The tours covered some of the same info but the caves were different enough that we enjoyed both. We liked Pommery a little more (although we found the modern art displays distracting) because we were lucky to have a smaller group and a better guide - but Taittinger was very good too. Because we were right next to it, after Pommery we had a quick enjoyable visit at Villa Demoiselle. Between these 3 places we tasted 6 different champagnes (including our first rosé champagne). All were very good.
Between our Pommery and Taittinger tours we had planned to find a place for lunch but we could not find a restaurant open on that side of town (they closed between 2 and 5). We eventually ended up eating some not very good heated up premade pizza and quiche at a sidewalk café in a not very pretty part of town. After the Taittinger tour we took an Uber to the hotel and checked in. The room was not big but it was nice and the a/c worked great. As has been the case for us on our last few trips to Europe it was way hotter than normal so we really appreciated the a/c.
By this time it was late afternoon and we had not even walked around the central part of the town yet. But when we did, we really liked it. We walked toward the Cathedral and a bonus of visiting at this time of the day was the late afternoon sun shining on the front of the Cathedral. It was spectacular on the outside and really lit up the stained glass when looking back at it from the inside. As we walked around some more, like at Chartres, we were very impressed with the beautiful town. Back to the hotel for a brief rest before having a nice dinner at a restaurant just across the street from the hotel.
We then walked back to the Cathedral for the 10 PM light show on the front of it. It was not crowded in the front so we found a spot where we could see everything and it was outstanding. Back to the hotel and bed so we would be ready for our drive in the country tomorrow. A great first day in champagne country.
Spoiler Alert – we had a great time today. About 3 weeks before our trip I bought and printed our train tickets from home using the very easy Oui.sncf app. Quick and easy Uber to Gare d l’Est to catch the 9:28 TGV to Reims. We easily found our 2nd class seats and settled in for the 46 minute ride to Reims. I still feel like a little kid when I get to ride on a train – especially one that reached 181 mph. My Waze app would not display the speed above 124 mph but my wife found an app that showed us going 181 mph at one point. Gotta love the trains in Europe!
We were going to spend one night in Reims so we wanted a hotel within easy walking distance of the train station that could store our luggage while we explored the town until we could check in. We stayed at the Hotel Continental (a 3 minute walk from the station) and we were very happy with the hotel and the staff. We dropped off the luggage and the clerk offered us a coffee which we gladly accepted. Since we were so close to the Musee de la Reddition we walked to it. Interesting to see the small room with the actual table where the historic signing took place and especially the handwritten notes by General Eisenhower. Less than an hour later we were in a taxi on our way to Pommery for our first tour.
Before this trip we did not know much about champagne and there are so many tour options it is almost overwhelming but we finally decided on Pommery and Taittinger. The tours covered some of the same info but the caves were different enough that we enjoyed both. We liked Pommery a little more (although we found the modern art displays distracting) because we were lucky to have a smaller group and a better guide - but Taittinger was very good too. Because we were right next to it, after Pommery we had a quick enjoyable visit at Villa Demoiselle. Between these 3 places we tasted 6 different champagnes (including our first rosé champagne). All were very good.
Between our Pommery and Taittinger tours we had planned to find a place for lunch but we could not find a restaurant open on that side of town (they closed between 2 and 5). We eventually ended up eating some not very good heated up premade pizza and quiche at a sidewalk café in a not very pretty part of town. After the Taittinger tour we took an Uber to the hotel and checked in. The room was not big but it was nice and the a/c worked great. As has been the case for us on our last few trips to Europe it was way hotter than normal so we really appreciated the a/c.
By this time it was late afternoon and we had not even walked around the central part of the town yet. But when we did, we really liked it. We walked toward the Cathedral and a bonus of visiting at this time of the day was the late afternoon sun shining on the front of the Cathedral. It was spectacular on the outside and really lit up the stained glass when looking back at it from the inside. As we walked around some more, like at Chartres, we were very impressed with the beautiful town. Back to the hotel for a brief rest before having a nice dinner at a restaurant just across the street from the hotel.
We then walked back to the Cathedral for the 10 PM light show on the front of it. It was not crowded in the front so we found a spot where we could see everything and it was outstanding. Back to the hotel and bed so we would be ready for our drive in the country tomorrow. A great first day in champagne country.
Last edited by john183; Sep 13th, 2019 at 07:32 AM.
Sep 14th, 2019, 08:24 AM
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Sep 15th, 2019, 04:37 AM
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Day 6.
Our plan for the day was one of my favorite kind of days. Rent a car, have a loose idea of where you want to go, then hit the road and just look for adventure. This day did not disappoint – we had a lot of fun. Had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel, checked out and walked the 4 minutes to Enterprise ($69.51 for the day – about half the price of any other company) at the train station. Quickly took care of the paperwork and loaded up in a nice Peugeot 3008. I was a little disappointed that it was an automatic. Renting cars in Europe is the only time I get to drive a manual these days and I was looking forward to it. We followed Waze directions on my phone to a little town near the beginning of the champagne trail. From here we just followed the brown champagne trail signs toward Epernay.
After a few miles of fairly boring farmland, we started to see vineyards. Took a couple of wrong turns when we did not see the brown champagne trail signs at a roundabout so we paid better attention and soon found ourselves in the middle of lots of vineyards in the Montagne de Reims Park. There were some rolling hills and there were bright green grape vines in every direction - my idea of heaven. We pulled over a few times to take some pictures of the countryside and some closeups of the vines loaded with tons of nearly ripe grapes (both red and white). We saw lots of people working in the vineyards. Probably not everyone’s idea of beauty but we liked it a lot.
As we were driving through a gorgeous little town, I pulled into a parking lot so we could take a few pictures. As we got out of the car, I heard some bottles clinking from behind a partially open door in a building near the lot. I poked my head in and saw some champagne bottles on a very tiny kind of assembly line and a guy running one of the machines motioned for me to come in. The guy in charge came over and even though there was very little English we understood we could stay and watch.
There were 5 people as busy as they could be doing something we had just learned about on our cave tours yesterday. They were removing the settled sediment, refilling with sugar and wine then corking the bottles. They were manually handling the bottles one at a time doing the process. One person put the capped, upside down bottles a few inches into a very cold solution to quickly freeze the sediment that had settled in the neck. Once frozen, she put it on a very small assembly line where the next person grabbed the bottle, took a bottle opener and opened the cap so the frozen sediment would pop out – it was forced out by the pressure. He then put it on a machine that refilled the bottle to the proper level. The next guy put the bottle in to the corking machine. It finally came out at the end of the line where a guy gathered the corked bottles and put them on racks that the last person moved back to the storage area where it would stay until it was ready to drink.
It was so cool to watch this process that we had just learned about and the entire line from beginning to end was probably only about 10 yards long. It could easily fit in my basement. Hmmm???? Nah. Although years ago at a corporate team building event we had to draw a picture of what we would like to be doing when we retired. I drew myself as a winemaker standing in the middle of my vineyards near my winery. Hmmm???? Nah. I’m happy to just visit these gorgeous places.
I asked the guy in charge if we could buy a bottle and he said yes. I handed him 20 Euros and asked if that was enough. He indicated it was too much and went to get some change. He came back very perplexed because he did not have enough change in his change drawer. I tried to tell him that was totally OK for letting us watch but he found and handed me three brightly colored ink pens with the name of the champagne on them and told me that could be my change.
The name of the champagne is Champagne Lacourte Guillemart and here is the web site:
https://www.champagne-lacourte-guillemart.com/en/
The pretty little town is Ecueil and there is a map near the parking lot that shows there are 40 different champagne makers in this tiny town. Unbelievable.
Back on the champagne trail and it was still incredibly scenic and noticeably uncrowded. We felt like we almost had the entire champagne area to ourselves. We stopped at a nice location for a tasting on a terrace overlooking the beautiful countryside and bought another bottle here. Continued on towards Epernay where we wanted to have lunch. The area close to Epernay wasn’t nearly as scenic as earlier. We parked close to the Avenue de Champagne and had a huge lunch. We then walked up and down the Avenue de Champagne, had an unremarkable tasting at one of the places and decided to go to Hautvillers. Parked a few blocks from the abbey and walked towards it (one of the streets we walked on was the very pretty Rue Dom Perignon).
The abbey was nice as was the walk there and back through the pretty town. We took a ton of pictures of the town. We then headed back towards Reims to catch our train back to Paris. On the way back we came across one of the many WW1 cemeteries that are scattered throughout this part of France. We stopped to have a look and the grounds were immaculate. Someone is taking really good care of it. I mean there was nothing out of place anywhere in the cemetery.
Dropped the car off at Enterprise and had another nice TGV ride back to Paris. Easy Uber back to the apartment. The day had worked out just as we hoped. A little adventure, a little champagne and a lot of gorgeous scenery.
Our plan for the day was one of my favorite kind of days. Rent a car, have a loose idea of where you want to go, then hit the road and just look for adventure. This day did not disappoint – we had a lot of fun. Had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel, checked out and walked the 4 minutes to Enterprise ($69.51 for the day – about half the price of any other company) at the train station. Quickly took care of the paperwork and loaded up in a nice Peugeot 3008. I was a little disappointed that it was an automatic. Renting cars in Europe is the only time I get to drive a manual these days and I was looking forward to it. We followed Waze directions on my phone to a little town near the beginning of the champagne trail. From here we just followed the brown champagne trail signs toward Epernay.
After a few miles of fairly boring farmland, we started to see vineyards. Took a couple of wrong turns when we did not see the brown champagne trail signs at a roundabout so we paid better attention and soon found ourselves in the middle of lots of vineyards in the Montagne de Reims Park. There were some rolling hills and there were bright green grape vines in every direction - my idea of heaven. We pulled over a few times to take some pictures of the countryside and some closeups of the vines loaded with tons of nearly ripe grapes (both red and white). We saw lots of people working in the vineyards. Probably not everyone’s idea of beauty but we liked it a lot.
As we were driving through a gorgeous little town, I pulled into a parking lot so we could take a few pictures. As we got out of the car, I heard some bottles clinking from behind a partially open door in a building near the lot. I poked my head in and saw some champagne bottles on a very tiny kind of assembly line and a guy running one of the machines motioned for me to come in. The guy in charge came over and even though there was very little English we understood we could stay and watch.
There were 5 people as busy as they could be doing something we had just learned about on our cave tours yesterday. They were removing the settled sediment, refilling with sugar and wine then corking the bottles. They were manually handling the bottles one at a time doing the process. One person put the capped, upside down bottles a few inches into a very cold solution to quickly freeze the sediment that had settled in the neck. Once frozen, she put it on a very small assembly line where the next person grabbed the bottle, took a bottle opener and opened the cap so the frozen sediment would pop out – it was forced out by the pressure. He then put it on a machine that refilled the bottle to the proper level. The next guy put the bottle in to the corking machine. It finally came out at the end of the line where a guy gathered the corked bottles and put them on racks that the last person moved back to the storage area where it would stay until it was ready to drink.
It was so cool to watch this process that we had just learned about and the entire line from beginning to end was probably only about 10 yards long. It could easily fit in my basement. Hmmm???? Nah. Although years ago at a corporate team building event we had to draw a picture of what we would like to be doing when we retired. I drew myself as a winemaker standing in the middle of my vineyards near my winery. Hmmm???? Nah. I’m happy to just visit these gorgeous places.
I asked the guy in charge if we could buy a bottle and he said yes. I handed him 20 Euros and asked if that was enough. He indicated it was too much and went to get some change. He came back very perplexed because he did not have enough change in his change drawer. I tried to tell him that was totally OK for letting us watch but he found and handed me three brightly colored ink pens with the name of the champagne on them and told me that could be my change.
The name of the champagne is Champagne Lacourte Guillemart and here is the web site:
https://www.champagne-lacourte-guillemart.com/en/
The pretty little town is Ecueil and there is a map near the parking lot that shows there are 40 different champagne makers in this tiny town. Unbelievable.
Back on the champagne trail and it was still incredibly scenic and noticeably uncrowded. We felt like we almost had the entire champagne area to ourselves. We stopped at a nice location for a tasting on a terrace overlooking the beautiful countryside and bought another bottle here. Continued on towards Epernay where we wanted to have lunch. The area close to Epernay wasn’t nearly as scenic as earlier. We parked close to the Avenue de Champagne and had a huge lunch. We then walked up and down the Avenue de Champagne, had an unremarkable tasting at one of the places and decided to go to Hautvillers. Parked a few blocks from the abbey and walked towards it (one of the streets we walked on was the very pretty Rue Dom Perignon).
The abbey was nice as was the walk there and back through the pretty town. We took a ton of pictures of the town. We then headed back towards Reims to catch our train back to Paris. On the way back we came across one of the many WW1 cemeteries that are scattered throughout this part of France. We stopped to have a look and the grounds were immaculate. Someone is taking really good care of it. I mean there was nothing out of place anywhere in the cemetery.
Dropped the car off at Enterprise and had another nice TGV ride back to Paris. Easy Uber back to the apartment. The day had worked out just as we hoped. A little adventure, a little champagne and a lot of gorgeous scenery.
Last edited by john183; Sep 15th, 2019 at 05:31 AM.
Sep 15th, 2019, 08:36 AM
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Treesa - I think I was trying to post some pictures at the same time you were posting. I have never posted pics within my report but I'm giving it a try. Seems to work. Of course you can have a sports car. I might get one if I could figure out how to get car seats for our 2 great grandkids in it. HA!
Sep 15th, 2019, 08:47 AM
#32
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Day 2 Pictures
Luxembourg Gardens
Luxembourg Gardens
Luxembourg Gardens
Luxembourg Gardens
Luxembourg Gardens
Paris by Mouth Food Tour
Paris by Mouth Food Tour
Paris by Mouth Food Tour
Paris by Mouth Food Tour - about to have lots to eat and drink
While walking on our Paris by Mouth Food Tour
While walking on our Paris by Mouth Food Tour
Last edited by john183; Sep 15th, 2019 at 08:51 AM.
Sep 15th, 2019, 09:45 AM
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John, what a perfectly wonderful day you had driving the Route de Champagne, brought back such happy memories of our stay there in Sept 2017. This is what you’ll remember 10,20 years hence and you’ll once again be transported back to that little village...
Your pictures and TR are tops, please keep it coming!
Your pictures and TR are tops, please keep it coming!
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Chartres
Sep 15th, 2019, 10:19 AM
#36
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Day 3 Pictures - Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral
Our great guide
Chartres Cathedral Crypt
Chartres Cathedral Crypt
Chartres Cathedral Crypt
Chartres Cathedral Crypt - Virgin Mary's veil
Chartres Cathedral Crypt - Virgin Mary's veil
Chartres Cathedral Crypt - Chapel where our guide sang a hymn - she was just beginning in this pic
Chartres Cathedral Crypt
Chartres Cathedral Crypt
Sep 15th, 2019, 11:15 AM
#37
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Day 4 Pictures
Orsay
Orsay restaurant
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Orsay outside viewing terrace
Pedestrian bridge on walk to Orangerie
Pedestrian bridge on walk to Orangerie
Pedestrian bridge on walk to Orangerie
Orangerie
Place de la Concorde
La Petite Perigourdine
Sep 15th, 2019, 01:16 PM
#38
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Day 5 Pictures
TGV to Reims
Musee de la Reddition
Musee de la Reddition
Musee de la Reddition
Pommery
Pommery
Pommery
Pommery - the modern art displays really distracted from the beauty of the art carved in to the walls
Pommery
Pommery
Pommery
Villa Demoiselle
Villa Demoiselle
Our not very good lunch
Taittinger
Taittinger
Taittinger
Taittinger
Reims
Reims
Reims Cathedral
Reims Cathedral
Reims Cathedral
Reims Cathedral
Reims Cathedral
Reims Cathedral night light show
Reims Cathedral night light show
Sep 15th, 2019, 05:38 PM
#39
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Day 6 Pictures
Lacourte Guillemart
Lacourte Guillemart
Lacourte Guillemart
Lacourte Guillemart
Ecueil
Ecueil
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Champagne Country
Epernay
Avenue de Champagne
Avenue de Champagne
Avenue de Champagne
Hautvillers
Hautvillers
Hautvillers
Hautvillers
WW1 Cemetery
WW1 Cemetery
WW1 Cemetery
