Into the Heart of Champagne

 It was nice to have our own space in which to construct our own breaky. Although less options than any restaurant buffet it was certainly more comfortable than having to elbow German tourists out if the way to get to the the granola. Let alone the Americans who can't use coffee machines properly. Instead this was all nicely civilised with the six protagonists weaving a merry dance around the space as we all did our own thing in order to exit the premis in the pre-ordained time. This blogger had a bad start with breaking the tripod and jamming the bedrooms sink. (Forgot to include them in the previous plumbing count but there are quite a few of these as well). That combined with the chesty cough that is not going away but slowly spreading throughout the team made it all a bit harder to be in the groove. Nevertheless we all got out the door in time and headed up to the nearby tram stop where J&S deftly navigated the ticket machine to enable us to quickly get up to the train sration we had seemingly just left yesterday (about lunchtime). Combined we all spent a fair amount of euros on tickets thst were never checked ( however that's not the point) in order to spend 30 mins on a local train over to Eperney. Never heard of it before. Many had though as this is the heart of the Champagne region (which is why we came here in the first place so S&N could show us around). 

A very picturesque ride through extensive platations of grape vines was a nice entrance to the town. They have a famous road called the Avenue of Champagne. It's called so because all the big names have their operations based here. It's very fancy and reaks of wealth. These people take this stuff very seriously. The reason is not so for pleasantness that the product bestows on the consumers, it all about how much of their hard earned can be extracted from them in the process. This is where the spin comes in and thus revenues are significantly enhanced when one feels a sense of achievement when simply being able to purchace such a quality product..

The Avenue has all the big names (e.g. Moet & Chandon) with their large admin buildings fronting the factories behind as well as store fronts, attached to salubrious restaurants and tasting areas. These are all discreetly called  Champagne Houses. They've been there for ages and create an extremely popular tourist attraction by doing so. Didn't know about but can tick it off anyway. After N had cleverly sniffed out a free tasting in the tourist info centre we wandered aimlessly up the Avenue looking for something. Anything. Took lots of pics of grand old buildings that were looking immaculate in their finery. Eventually decided to see what all the fuss was about and ducked into a courtyard and demolished a bottle of Collard Picard in very elegant style whilst non-blogger was threatening a young couples dog by describing it as delicious. 

We then had a few hours to fill as the only tour of a house we could get was later on in the day so we wandered aimlessly towards the other side of town in the general direction of that event and found an establishment which could water and feed us for while which was quite pleasant. Heading off away from the pristine surrounds of the Avenue the place started to look very run down, onwards we trudged through the streets of run down buildings  cracked pavements and schools with very high security screens around them.

We'd almost given up hope and were wondering if the six of were going to be the focus of one of those shows on the TV where the audience is saying "well they made bad choices and deserved all they got", but no, into view came a salubrious establishment in which we spent quality time hearing all about the industry through the eyes of this house.

Got the spiel about how it's made, the rules, the aromas, the regional villages and how they're ranked in quality, lots of insight as to why we should fork out so much dosh on a single bottle of the stuff. We hen had a tasting session of thier quality products which was nice.

Blogger is a heathen , couldn't really tell the difference and therefore decide on his favorite. Guess we'll just  have to take our guides advice and keep on tasting different varieties.

After that the timimg was pretty good, so wandered with direction this time back down to the train station and whipped back to Riems in  a carriage that was seemingly full of people coughing and nose blowing.

Back in Riems,  we strolled though the town soaking up the feeling of thr joint as the locals started to settle into thier Friday evening. Lots people out making the most of the pleasant evening. Seemingly not caring that the half moon was the wrong way around. 

Ended up having dinner in the same place as last night as it's close to home. Everyone went to bed early except the lone blogger, labouriusly tapping away on his device...