Epernay: Day 1

Next stop Epernay, the Champagne capital of the world. We arrived fashionably late at the municipal campsite to find our little plot surrounded by what looked like a bunch of college boys on summer holidays. They’d hired these enormous campervans over which they’d strewn beach towels, board shorts etc and seemed pretty intent on getting hammered and making ridiculous whooping noises all evening.As we set up camp in the darkness with our headlamps a guy from New Zealand spotted our little tent and immediately recognised us as fellow cycle tourists and was terribly excited. He was retired now and he and his wife were at the end of an epic journey from China to Paris. Amazingly he’d hardly seen any other cycle tourists along the way. I hastened to downplay the significance of our little expedition considering that we’d actually caught the train that day but it was fascinating to hear about his travels. I was alarmed to hear that he’d been attacked whilst camping in Kazakhstan and had to be hospitalised! Fortunately a local intervened during the attack to save him and his wife but I admired their determination in deciding to continue their trip. It did cause me to reflect that two girls travelling together might be best sticking to safer countries. France and the Netherlands were just fine for now.

After hardly getting any sleep that night our priority the next morning was to check in to a hotel. We found a lovely little place not too far away run by another of those wonderful older couples we would come to grow so fond of in our travels. We were so tired we slept through until afternoon before venturing out in search of dinner. We followed our hosts’ recommendation and after some waiting gained a table amongst the 50-something entirely French crowd. A good sign in my book. The wine list met with P2’s approval (no mean feat) and the food certainly didn’t disappoint. It was my first experience of choucroute. This version was a deceptively simple mix of pork sausages, belly pork, apple, potatoes and onions baked in white wine. Result? Delicious!