Images of Reims

The bottom photo is outside the former headquarters of General Eisenhower where he signed the surrender of WWII on behalf of the Allies.

Lots of bubbles

A lot of the large champagne houses were closed over the festive season but we managed to get guided visits at Moet et Chandon and G.H. Mumm. It was amazing to see the underground network of champange cellars that lie beneath these champagne houses. Each had about 25km of underground cellars. It was also interesting to visit a smaller champagne producer and learn about the production process. It was slightly bizarre because to visit the smaller champagne makers, you go to their front door, ring the doorbell and ask if you can sample/purchase their wines. We felt a bit like intruders but that's just the way it works over there.

Images of Beaune

Hotel Dieu (the Hospice de Beaune) is an incredibly impressive place to visit. We don't normally include nursing homes on our 'must-see' list when we visit a place but this one was an exception. And we don't normally spend so much time gazing at roof tiling, but once again, this one was an exception!

Wine trail in Burgundy

Burgundy lies about 2 hours south of Champagne. We based ourselves in Beaune and did day trips on the various wine trails in the area. We don't really know much about French wines, the regions, the grapes, etc. but had a massive (and incredibly heavy) book called World Atlas of Wine, and read about the places we visited along the way...Chassagne-Montrachet, Meursault, Pommard, Nuits Saint George, Vougeout, Dijon (vive la moutarde!) and a block of land/ vineyards that boasted to have the grapes that produced the most expensive wine in the world. It was dead quiet on the roads and there were hardly any other tourists around, but it was nice not competing with hoardes of others and the winter landscape and bare vines were starkly beauty. My colleague recommended some smaller winemakers to visit and we also visited several caves (cellars) where you can pay for a selection of tastings. The car was definitely heavier by the time we left Beaune.

White New Year

It didn't snow on Christmas Day so I'm still dreaming of a white Christmas...but we got plenty of snow for NYE. We booked a restaurant in the ski village of La Bresse. We didn't realise when we booked it from the Netherlands, that the altitude of the restaurant was 1000m, and we pretty much had to drive up a mountain to get there, and the restaurant was on an unsealed road covered in ice and snow!! Yikes. So what goes up must come down. It snowed during the evening, making us even more nervous about the descent. We slowly and carefully made our way down at a pace no faster than 20km/hr and we very grateful for the winter tyres that we had put onto the car a few weeks earlier. The meal itself was delicious but next time we book something in a ski resort, we'll be checking on the altitude.

A delicious start to the new year

Here are some snaps of the divine desserts that we enjoyed on Christmas Day and New Years Eve. As we didn't have family to celebrate Christmas with, we consoled ourselves by eating a lot just the two of us.