I promised to report on our short trip to the Champagne region of France, and now that things have quieted down a bit here, I can finally get around to it.
This month, my sister came for a visit for the first time in over 25 years. After a few days in our humble home, we headed off for France, where we met her daughter in Troyes.
Karen and Olivia
Troyes is an amazingly quaint and lovely town, full of narrow streets and half-timbered houses and old churches, deserving of a much longer visit than we had time for in the few days at our disposal.
From Troyes, we went to Epernay, home of such famous champagnes as Moet & Chandon. There, we took a tour of a champagne house and the cellars, and visited a number of places on the Avenue de Champagne for a tasting here and there.
After Epernay, we went to Reims, where we visited the very impressive cathedral. It doesn’t beat Chartres, but it’s still one of the most beautiful cathedrals I’ve seen.
Me and the old man in Reims
Olivia has been living in Nantes since last autumn, and it was great having someone along who was fluent in French. She even helped translate from English to French at one of the places where we were doing a tasting, which lead to a couple of extra glasses of champagne. *g*
We came back with a half case. Now I just have to come up with some special occasions in order to drink it. 🙂
You can see more pictures of our trip here.
Love your photos! I’m going to have to put Troyes on my ever-increasing list of places to visit.
Thanks, Emily! For me, it’s definitely on the places to go back to list. 🙂
I loved the cathedral at Reims. The Chagal window, the tapestries, the smiling angles and saints carved on the outside…I have an antique tintype lithograph of the cathedral in my dining room. Did you know they took the wall down from around the city to use its stone to build the cathedral and took up the motto, “God is our defense”?
Wow, that’s a very interesting detail, Wendy!
I loved the Chagall windows too, but those pics are on my camera rather than my phone, and I haven’t uploaded them yet. 🙂
Looks like a wonderful time!
It was. 🙂 And amazingly headache free, given all the champagne …
Special occasions … days ending in ‘Y’! 😀
Love that pic of the alley (?) that gets progressively narrower the higher you look. 🙂
Very good idea. *g*