Reim’s continued

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We expect to see Leneke and Hanneka sometime early Saturday. They arrived around 1pm and we decided to take a walk to Reims Center City for light lunch. Ken checked out the train station on our way to lunch.

Later in the afternoon, we took Hanneke’s car and drove back to Champagne country (about a 30-40 minute drive depending where you go) to eat dinner at Le Mesnil, our new friend Armelles restaurant. We had some time to kill before our reservation so we wandered around one of the small villages there. Leneke remarked that we never see any people. Most towns do look very much like “ghost towns”, but of course we are usually wandering in the mid-afternoon when everything is closed and most are taking their mid-day “naps”. We had a wonderful meal at Le Mesnil, got a bit lost going back to Reims, but arrived at boat where we were dropped off and said our goodbyes to Leneke and Hanneka.

We have found, as did the entire world, that an Ash cloud can change your life, schedule and possibly miss with travel plans. Ken’s original plan was to fly back to the USA on Sunday, but due to the Ash cloud, he delayed it one week. This meant we could not stay in Reims, but have to continue our progress down the canals.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday April 14-17

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Wednesday morning I met one of the neighboring boat owners, and she gave me the captainare’s local number to call about electric and water. We will stay here until Ken returns from the USA on the 23rd. My plan will be to explore Reims when Ken is gone. For now, we enjoy the nice weather, clean the boat, find internet, diesel and groceries. Captainare’s name is Eric and he made arrangements to meet me in 15 minutes of our call. We settle for one week at 100 Euros that would include water and electric (we would actually be there 10 days total). He wants cash but we are Euro poor at the moment so we make plans to meet when we return from champagne country on Friday at 5:30.
Thursday, our bags are packed for a 2 day journey with rented car to champagne country. Within 30 minutes of Reims, we have too many Champagne houses to choose from. The country side is loaded with grape vines and we can only imagine what it looks like in full season. The new buds for the spring are barely noticeable at this time. We received a list of champagnes from Howard (our wine dealer in Chicago) and so we attempted to locate some of these champagne houses.

Along the way we found via Foders a wonderful hotel, Le Cheval Blanc. Stayed Thursday night and had our first Champagne tasting at 9am Friday morning. The owner and his son were there along with Armelle who spoke very good English. Of course we left with Champagne for the boat and a great referral to Armelle’s restaurant in Le Mesnil sur Oger.

We headed back to Reims on Friday evening and planned to take the car back on Saturday. On Saturday, prior to Ken returning the rental car, he would take several trips to the Gas station in order to fill our diesel tank up utilizing our small 2.5 gal spare portable tank.

Tuesday, April 13

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Locks open at 7am so we headed out after a small tomatoe/egg quiche for breakfast. A farmers yellow lab discovered us in “his” territory and I came up on deck after I decided he was NOT going to stop barking at us. Threw him some bread and after gobbling it up, he pranced on his way down the path…Must be a trick he has learned over the years.

We arrived in Reims around 2pm Tuesday and stopped near city center at their Halt Nautique. It is not officially opened for the season but plenty of space to tie up. We decided we desperately needed Internet and a hot shower so lucky for us, across the street was a Mercur Hotel. We will stay here 2 nights, getting some work done and then some Reims exploration. The Hotel was great and being across the street from the boat made our “logistics” incredibly easy. Ken caught up on some work and I made sure the boat was ready and looking great.

We had a wonderful lunch Le Jardin which was settled in a complex that housed a 5 star Hotel. A beautiful old chateau that was transformed into a beautiful hotel. We stopped at Pommery Champagne House down the road and had our first Champagne tasting. They had an old wooden cage that was used and on exhibition in St. Louis for the Worlds Fair. Hope the picture does it justice.