France Tour 2016 - Day 5 - Reims to Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne

Click here for Day 4's diary if you missed it! 

Wednesday 31st August 

Today we managed to get going at just before 9:30 after one of us overslept ever so slightly.. On the way out of Reims, we briefly stopped at the old pit garages and grandstands for the Reims road race circuit. They are literally just on the side of the road as you're riding along so it really would be rude not to stop and take some photos! 

The old pit garages with hand-painted signs

The start-finish straight a.k.a the road

They even had a stand for the media people!

Riding along pit lane

We then headed on through the vineyards and champagne region towards Charly-sur-Marne and arrived there at around 11. The reason we purposefully went through Charly, as well as the pretty countryside of the champagne region, was that it proved my name did have a correct spelling for all those people not accepting it as a "proper" spelling/name. 

Selfie by my town sign with my bike in the background

After our stop in Charly, we headed into another of France's national parks with a general aim of getting to Chantilly for lunch. This little detour also stopped us getting tangled up in the ring road around Paris. The buildings in Chantilly were beautiful but as it was lunch time, all the shops in the centre, minus the odd couple, were closed for lunch so we found somewhere to sit, slowly melting in our bike trousers in 28 degree heat, and had some lunch. 

One of the many beautiful buildings in Chantilly

Parked up in Chantilly

Pressing on in the general direction of Rouen to get to our hotel for the night, we hit a couple of main A roads just to knock off a few miles. After going to the wrong village first as I placed the flag marker for the end point in the wrong place (neighbouring villages with the same road names just makes life confusing), we eventually arrived at the hotel here at around 5:30 so it was a pretty decent days riding all in all. 

Our view from the hotel, parked in the evening sunshine

Our hotel is really lovely and right on the Seine so we've got some good tonight. We're now over halfway through our trip and roughly halfway in mileage terms too despite only having 2 days of riding left to do with a long day tomorrow to the beach via Honfleur.

Daily miles: 180;

Total miles done: 691.

France Tour 2016 - Day 4 - Reims

If you've missed the start of the diaries, check out Day 1 here or yesterday's here. 

Tuesday 30th August

After a much needed lie in (I am that person who loves sleep), we grabbed some breakfast and headed to the George Hermann Mumm Champagne House for our tour at 11. Obviously, we walked there as we wanted some champagne! 

The tour was actually pretty interesting and I did actually learn a fair few things (may have also forgotten a few after the champagne!) including that 2009 was an excellent year in the champagne region and so the bottles were aged for 5 years and the year is now considered a vintage and that somebody's job is to turn 40,000 bottles a day in the yeast removal process. 

The three different grapes used in the champagne-making process

The different sizes of bottles you can have, there are also two even bigger ones!

The tunnels go on forever, you could easily get lost

The bottle in the middle is the oldest bottle in the cellar, Cordon Rouge 1876

After the tour we got to try some champagne with some cheese that complemented the blend. It was a glass of the 2009 vintage G.H Mumm that we tasted too so it was good stuff. As a poor student though, I tend to be slightly better versed in vodka and supermarket wine than champagne...

Posing in the museum

A glass of the 2009 vintage to enjoy

We relaxed all afternoon in one of the squares before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, the light show and moving on tomorrow, I also had a nap (told you I love my sleep!). 

If you've never seen one of the cathedral light shows (I know there's another one at Amiens as well), I would definitely recommend going as both of the ones I've seen have been pretty good and there were some really cleverly done sections to the show too. 

The projections were impressive

Lighting up all of the individual parts of the cathedral

The effort to line up the projections correctly must've taken a while

Art deco section of the show

The end of the show with the cathedral all lit up

Off to Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne tomorrow and then we'll be halfway through our trip! They always go by so fast. 

Daily miles: 0 (over 12,000 steps taken though!);

Total miles done: 511.

France Tour 2016 - Day 3 - Maubeuge to Reims

Check out Day 2 of the tour diary here in case you missed it!

Monday 29th August

Today was another pretty short day in the scheme of things and we managed to get rolling at around 9:30 with waterproofs and rain covers preemptively on as it was looking a bit grey and we had some super light drizzle. Off we set through the French countryside on some fab albeit slightly damp roads. 

The place we were going to stop for a drink... nowhere was open

After around 70 miles, we stopped at a small cafe-bar in the small village of Rouvroy-sur-Audry (D978 if you're interested - it's a great road) which had some Joe Bar pictures outside and other bike-y type things inside including a Repsol Honda mini replica on the shelf so I reckoned it was a good place to stop! A drink and a few wine gums later, we set off again with the majority of the miles already under our belts. 

Joe Bar cartoons? Think we'll be good here!

D978 in the cloudy French countryside

We arrived at the hotel at around 1:30 which is a nice little 2 star in the city centre just around the corner from all the cafes and restaurants. The decor is a bit creepy though...

The bed on the left? Yep, that would be mine

Our running plan then got disrupted slightly as we were going to go out for dinner and then watch the light show at the cathedral but after getting there for 10 and finding a seat, somebody told us that they just googled it and it turned out the show ran every day except for Monday. 

Wandering around Reims before dinner

We've got a day off tomorrow and a champagne tour planned and then we'll probably have a wander around Reims in the afternoon. 

Daily miles: 111;

Total miles done: 511.