Last weekend I took the train after work on Friday to Épernay to visit a French friend of mine who spent the summer in Tennessee several years ago. We've kept in touch, and she told me she'd be home from school for the weekend, so I packed a backpack and set out for adventure. I also snuck into first class and stayed there for the whole trip...shhhh, don't tell SNCF...
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| I went with my new travel buddy, Mort ze Hedgehog |
I arrived so late on Friday night that all I really wanted to do was sleep, so my friend and her boyfriend picked me up at the station and took me back to her parents' house where I fell asleep in the deepest, softest, cushiest, most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. It was definitely worth the trip just for that bed, not to mention all the other fantastic things I got to do!
On Saturday morning, Aurélie informed me that we had a full day ahead of us. We started with breakfast from the family
boulangerie; it's literally on the ground floor of their apartment, and they had the best
croissants, pain au chocolats, brioches, and
baguettes I've ever tasted. After breakfast they showed me around the bakery, and I got to take pictures and disturb people while they worked. Yay, tourists!
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| The little elves who make the much-celebrated baguettes. |
We walked around the town of Épernay for a little while; it's a little smaller than Nevers, but it seems a lot better connected, as if people are more willing to interact with one another--there are more public squares and more pedestrian streets. I loved it :)
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| It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! |
We walked through the outdoor market and saw the outside of Boulangerie Danis-Ova; there was a line all the way around the block! Must be the best place in town :)
After showing me the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), Théatre (you all know what that is), city park, and various other beautiful places, Aurélie took me to the Avenue de Champagne. This avenue is considered the richest in the world because of the hundreds of thousands of bottles stored in the tens of kilometers of underground champagne caves.
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| One of many maisons de champagne on the Avenue de Champagne |
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| Dom Perignon, pimp daddy of champagne and mascot of Moët and Chandon. Go team! |
We went on a guided tour (in English--so thoughtful!) inside the chalk caves of Maison Mercier, one of the champagne producers at the end of the Avenue de Champagne. It was a very chic place, with all sorts of expensive Mercier-emblazoned merchandise. I almost bought a Mercier umbrella for 30€; I would never have been able to let myself live that one down.
They had a laser-guided train that took us through the caves to show us the aging process of the champagne, and at the end of the tour we had a free tasting. Delicious :)
For lunch we had
la pierrade, something I've seen in France but have never known the name of. Basically, it's a giant stone that you heat up and grill meat on. You eat the meats with all kinds of sauces and mashed potatoes, of course followed by salad, cheese, and dessert. Yes, please :)
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| La pierrade, yet another way to play with your food in France. |
In the afternoon we took a trip to la Cathédrale de Reims. It was beautiful, as I imagined, even though the weather was terrible. The cathedral is celebrating its 800th anniversary next year--800 years of being worshipped in, destroyed, rebuilt, 800 years of weddings, baptisms, funerals...it's incredible being in a country with such a rich and ancient history. Makes me feel like I come from an infant country indeed!
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| The beautiful cathedral, built in the style of Notre Dame de Paris |
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| I hope I look this good when I turn 800. |
We stopped by a wine fair on our way to Aurélie's boyfriend's dad's house for dinner; there were SO many vendors there selling their homemade wines, but we felt bad making every vendor believe we were going to buy their wine and then leaving without buying anything...so we only tried one. Unfortunately, it was a terrible one. Oh well, c'est la vie en France--not all wine is good wine, even in the country that specializes in it!
For dinner we had
la raclette. Raclette is one of my favorite dishes in France; every person at the table gets his or her own personal skillet, and in it they melt raclette cheese in a special, tiny table-top oven. When the cheese is melted, you pour it over cold cuts (ham and different kinds of sausages) and potatoes and serve it with tiny sour pickles. It's so delicious, and making it is half (almost all) the fun :)
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| Mmmmmm, raclette. [Drool] |
The day I left to come back to Nevers, Aurélie took me to the top of the Mountain de Reims; it's not really a mountain, but compared to the valley in which Épernay sits, everything sure does look small from up there! It was amazing--you could literally see patchworks of vineyards, made up of only champagne grapes, for miles in every direction.
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| Vineyards, vineyards, everywhere! |
The weekend seemed fantastically long because of all the different places we visited, foods we ate, and things we saw and did, but I was really on in Épernay for a day and a half. Still, I had a great weekend (catastrophe free!) and spent some wonderful time with the nicest French people I've ever met. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more weekends like this one in my life :) À bientôt!
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