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Published: July 24th 2009
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The sound of children screeching awoke us. One other piece of information the owner of the campsite didn't share with us was the meeting location for children's activities. Apparently he didn't need to tell us, we could work it out in the morning. As the sounds got louder and louder and the tent got warmer and warmer, we ventured out and were faced with a horde of children sitting in the pavilion behind our tent. We gathered our gear and slunk over to the showers. It was around 10am and we thought we'd better get a bit of a move on if we wanted to visit a Champagne house before the end of the day.
After brunch we packed up the campsite and headed into town and found a park near the tourist information centre and wandered along the
Ave de Champagne. We decided to go on the
Mercier champagne tour as the tourist brochure mentioned something about elevators and a laser guided trains. Cool. After walking most of the length of Ave de Champagne past
Moet & Chandon,
Castellane and at least five other champagne houses we found ourselves at Mercier. Upon entering we discovered a couple of interesting
Champagne bottle sizes.
We typically drink the third one from the right. The others are huge! things.
1. A car park - we needn't have wandered the length of the Ave de Champagne
2. The place was closed from 11:30 until 2pm. It was 12:20pm. Damn
At length, after sitting in the air-conditioned reception area of
Mercier, we decided to head back to the car and have lunch before coming back. This decision was reached after we realised we were hungry, the temperature was in the late 30's and we came from England and were definitely not used to the heat.
Back at Mercier we got our tickets and were told our tour would start in 30 minutes. When we heard some English being spoken we gathered over in a corner with the rest of our tour group. Three more Aussies and what sounded like an American joined us. The tour guide was Dutch and her English was excellent. We were ushered into a small movie theatre and shown a small movie about the history of Mercier then taken to an elevator. The ride down was the slowest elevator ride in the world. Unless there is one somewhere pulled by hand. And even that may be faster. There was a reason for this
of course. Each floor that we went down (30 meters in all) there was a montage reflecting the history of Mercier. At the bottom we walked over to a little train and sat down. The temperature of the caves is 10 degrees C so we rugged up and prepared to listen to what our guide had to say. I think the tour was about 30 minutes long and we found out how champagne was made and saw all the little touches of decoration that adorn the caves of Mercier. Finally we took a slightly quicker elevator up and were led to the degustation area where we were handed a small glass of champagne Mercier. This particular champagne was
Cuvee Eudene Mercier (the founders choice of blend) and we both agreed it was really nice and had a lot of flavour.
We headed back to car and headed in the direction of
Les Riceys where they make a particular type of pink champagne. Our route took us through most of champagne via the vineyards as we avoided the toll roads and getting to
Les Riceys at just after 5pm we were surprised to find that the campsite was closed. As
a result we decided to continue our journey on to Burgundy and skip the pink champers.
The next town over of any sort of size was caller
Chatillon-sur-Seine so we headed over, keeping our eyes peeled for campsites on the way. Once we got there we followed the signs to
Camping Municipal Louis Rigoly and greeted the owner. We had a quick chat and got a map of the nearby town as we had a bit of a hankering for beer and so figured we'd head there after dinner. The owner mentioned the baker came at 8:30am so we would have to be quick to catch him. Dave and I exchanged a look that pretty much showed our shared horror at being up that early when we didn't have to. Next to reception there were a couple of stands selling local
Crement du Burgundy and sausages, which were new, and being trialled by some of the local producers.
We set up camp and headed over for a gander at the local produce. The lady selling
Crement du Burgundy explained that it was similar to
Rose Les Riceys but made in Burgundy. Or at least that's what I think
she said. We had a taste and thought it was damn fine so decided to purchase a bottle. Our next communication breakdown occurred as she thought we wanted three and not one with the money I had given her. After much broken French and a lot of laughter we worked out what we were trying to say and secured a bottle. The sausage man on the next stall had spent a lot of time laughing at us so we next turned our attentions to his stall. We tried some sausage but found we were still picking bits of it out of our teeth for some time later and so decided not to buy any.
Chatillon-sur-Seine was just below us so we headed down the path to the city. First we decided to search out the
Source de la Douix, which was the point where a spring welled up out of the ground. Apparently it's the oldest known water shrine inf Europe. We headed from there into one of the town squares and were surprised to find most of the tables being packed up. Then we realised it was Tuesday. One of the only bars that were still open served
us so we had a couple of
Kronenbourgs (not from Scotland) then headed back to the campsite via the ruined castle.
Surprisingly we found
Chatillon-sur-Seine to be one of the nicest campsites we've visited. We couldn't have made a better choice.
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Helen
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travelling vicariously!!!
You'll have to head to the Napa Valley and get Jeff to give you his guided champagne tasting at Mumms