Rhymes with Reims

Saturday, April 18: Reims and Troyes.

We started off from Bouillon planning to get some miles under our belt. So much for that idea! We stopped in Reims to get some breakfast...

But clued in immediately that the city and cathedral deserved most of our morning. These pix will speak for themselves:

Much to Bill's delight, along comes this little gem. He parked illegally, but I guess that's allowed. A Renault Alpine, probably late 1960s, or early 1970s.

Afternoon to Troyes

Frome Reims we drove lovely smallish highways through fields and small towns for about 3 hours. We needed groceries, so decided to stop in Troyes at a supermarket, and then move on. Well, that didn't happen! The supermarket didn't have a public restroom, so we decided to head to the city centre for aid business and have a look around. Much to our surprise, we found one of the prettiest and most authentic 15th, 16 C cities in all of France! From the central square, which was hopping by this time on a Saturday, stretched a warren of small roads and alleyways lined with half timbered buildings of all shapes and sizes.

Some of the buidings had significant history back to the middle ages, and more recent, such as a villa in which napolean stayed during three or four stages of his campaigns, and a synagogue established in the 10th century.

After at least two hours of touring the well marked route, we abandoned any plans for further distance today, sat and people watched for an hour at a brasserie, then then settled into a nearby camper park for the night.

It is a noticeable mix of people here compared to further north... many of african descent, and all seeming to be mixing socially very comfortably. I just couldn't not think of the MAGA whackos south of North American border who have no idea how contentedly multicultural Europe really is!

Sunday, April 19:

We seem to have settled into a pattern of early to bed and early to rise, which gives us lovely sunlight on the fields as we set out around 7 am.

And friendly natives as we stop off the roadway for breakfast...

Pat researches a bit as we head south and finds some unexpected stopovers, such as the city of Auxelles, a port town upriver from Paris on the Seine, with authentic timbered houses, the abbey church and a great clock tower from the 16th century.

Our route was still along two lane winding byways through woods and small towns, such as this lunch stop at Saint Fargeau where we strolled through the clock tower to find a huge castle thingy. The castle was closed for lunch so we weren't able to go inside or hear much more about it, but apparently it has been occupied and revised by various and sundry Lords and Dukes sine the 15th C.

After lunch Ms. Google did finally put us on a motorway, and with spped limit of 130 km/h we managed to get a fair way south to just short of Limoges, in a pretty little free "aire de camping car" site alongside a small lake and a village.