Catching the train across to Reims made life easy, the hour and half journey flew by with the four of us falling asleep pretty quickly in the warmth of the sunshine. Picking up a rental car gave us free range of the city and surround areas, so after finding our hotel we headed straight back into the centre of town to find a restaurant for tea. Sitting outside, some of us tried the local delights of escargot (snails!). They are just as bad as I remember, but it could be just the thought of them that makes them circle around and around and around in my mouth.

Next day we drove down to Epernay to check our some vineyards and cellars. It turns out the champagne companies don’t grow their own grapes - they buy them from the surrounding vineyards and mix and treat them to their own specifications. Was all pretty interesting. We went to Champagne Castellane first, which was very old and impressive. This was a tour of the actual working cellar, mixing, bottling, ageing and labeling. There are close to 70km of cellars under the small town of Epernay.

After lunch we picked up some lunch from the supermarket and had a picnic out in the vineyards. Followed by driving through small towns and vineyards in the country side. On the way back we stopped at another cellar - Piper Heisieck. This one was much more geared for the tourist. A little buggy taking us through a pre-defined very cheesy tour of some little tunnel I doubt was ever used as a cellar.

Next day, we had time to hit up the last two touristy things in the area, dwarf mutant trees and a snail farm.