Francing Again

Day One – Epernay – May 20, 2011

There are few things in life that are as good as starting a vacation on a Friday, when everyone else has to schlep off to work as usual. Even getting up at 6am didn’t grate as much as it usually does when all I have to look forward to is a 3 hour round trip commute with 8 hours of work in between, especially when we’re heading to France for a two week adventure.

We made it to the Eurostar station at St Pancras in record time, having discovered the joys of the overland network connection from London Bridge (as opposed to our normal DLR trip to Bank and then fighting to get on the Northern Line to head north). After a quick stop in Boots to collect essential supplies (Zantac, for the excess of rich food and wine, and Imodium, for the same root cause), we went through security and got onto the Eurostar.

Unfortunately a group of older English partiers were sitting directly in front of us, evidently on their way to Brussels for a weekend of debauchery. They cracked their first bottle of wine to pair with their Tesco sausage rolls and scotch eggs at 8:30 am, and didn’t show any signs of stopping by the time we hit Lille an hour and half later – they were a bit the worse for wear by this point. While they may have had trouble standing, they were having no issues being heard. My clever plan of getting a good half hour nap was down the drain.

We found the Europcar agency in the train station and signed the requisite paperwork for our car, and then spent far longer than we should have looking for it. The door to the parking garage is cleverly disguised and located behind a large lift, and the lifts down to the lower levels themselves are completely absent (or not working). With the help of a disgruntled parking garage attendant we finally found our car – a Renault Clio only marginally bigger then one of my shoes. Despite appearances, we managed to cram both our cases in and set the sat nav for Epernay.

As usual, the auto routes in France, while a bit pricey, are excellent to drive on. We made a quick stop at one of the Aires along the way for lunch (which was surprisingly good) and managed to get to Epernay by 2:30, which was pretty good time really. The new sat nav worked well, although the new voices aren’t a shadow of the friendly helpfulness of Tracy, the old sat nav.

The B&B we’ve booked in was right on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay, which means it’s basically at the epicentre of all things bubbly in the world of wine. To walk from our place into town, we pass Pol Rogers, Moët and Chandon, Perrier Jouët, among others. The room itself is relatively nice, although there isn’t a separate bathroom – the toilet, sink, and bathtub are right in the room itself with just a flimsy and oh-so-see-through curtain to separate them from the rest of the room. I’ve always been a bit shy in this department, so it’ll be interesting to see how I deal with it for three days.

After setting in, we walked into town to find a convivial bar for a glass or two of champagne. The first place we found seemed to be infested with several swarms of various types of small fly-type insects, so after a very tasty glass we left for sunnier and more bug-free venues. This is where the trouble started.

I think we must’ve headed the wrong direction, because we couldn’t find a wine bar for love nor money. The one place we did eventually find after almost a full circuit of the town both managed to not offer wines by the glass (let alone champagne) at the same time as being incredibly rude. We walked back to the big roundabout right at the end of Avenue de Champagne, the one we’d dismissed earlier as being on the edge of town and assuming more would be available, and sat down for a drink.

As it turned out, it was a fantastic spot to engage in one of our favourite pastimes…well, two of our favourite pastimes – people watching and drinking very tasty beverages. Two glasses of very nice champagne each later we had made the following observations (not necessarily in this order):
• Despite all the trips to France over the years, we still love it here
• Champagne tastes good, whatever the occasion
• There are no 30-somethings in Epernay (as far as we could determine, based on clientele at the café we were at – not exactly scientific, but it was the best we could do)
• French teenagers spend far too much time kissing each other on the cheeks, time which would be better spent doing something about the incredibly stupid looking hair they seem to favour (at least among the boys)

We went back to the B&B to freshen up before dinner and then walked the short distance to Le Coquille, the restaurant recommended by the sweet old guy at the B&B. Le Coquille is exactly what we love about France – not pretentious, friendly, not overly expensive, very tasty food made by people who seem to care about what they’re doing. Dinner was excellent and we definitely enjoyed our evening there.

Clearly we needed to finish the evening with a final glass of champagne, so we walked back into town to find a champagne bar. We were headed in the general direction of Le Banque, the posh looking place just on the edge of the big square. On the way we walked past a nice looking, somewhat casual champagne bar. After poking our heads into Le Banque, we decided to go back to the other place, as it seemed more our style.

Part of the way through a half bottle of very good champagne, the somewhat drunk people at the table next to us introduced themselves. They are staying at the same B&B as us and had seen us earlier in the day as we’d left. Lauren and Jay were from Toronto, and were doing the grand tour of France, having spent a few days in Paris, another few in Eparney, and are taking the train to Provence tomorrow.

They had managed to drink a flight of six glasses of champagne each, followed by another half bottle, on top of whatever they’d had at dinner. They were impressively drunk, but as it was on champagne were also very cheerful about it. We chatted for a bit before they decided that they’d had enough for the night and headed back to the B&B. We had a final glass of champers before coming to the same conclusion ourselves.

At the end of the night, a quick inventory shows we’ve had 6 individual glasses of champagne each, a champagne-based aperitif each before dinner, a bottle of wine shared between us at dinner, and another half bottle of champagne after dinner. Not bad for our first day in France…