One man’s poison is another man’s cure

Spent the day exploring Reims after the obligatory coffee, croissant and people watching at a street café. The cathedral is awe inspiring with an enormous 13th century organ 😉 and contemporary and ancient stained glass windows. These by Chagall were my favourite.

In the afternoon we had a date with Madame Cliquot, and very entertaining she was.   24kms of chalk cellars filled with champagne…..lock us up and throw away the key.  It was interesting to learn the names for the different size bottles – mines a nabuchodonozur if you’re  asking.

We were kindly lent bikes by our host and there were several to choose from……two with wonky wobbly seats, one with a dodgy chain and two mens. We’ve now worked our way through all of them on various outings.  I used my particular favourite – a man’s bike with wonky seat – to cycle to the posh chateau for dinner last night while Jo rode an equally challenging machine.  We hadn’t really thought through the repercussions of cycling two miles uphill in the evening sun ……..to be observed by a particularly dishy maitre d ….patiently waiting for us to dismount and padlock our bikes…..while getting our breath back and mopping our faces.

We had a lovely meal sitting on a beautiful garden terrace.  We were a little concerned about how the journey home would go given the unreliable condition of our transport …….and our unreliable condition……but then we comforted ourselves with the thought that any injury would be treated using the special Reims medicine.