Further forays into France

In September, you might remember we made a trip into the southern Champagne region of France to see the house my daughter has bought in the Haute-Marne department. We were struck then by the loveliness of the area, but now we've just spent a full week there, it has struck us even more. 

Koos and I drove down on October the 15th, a month to the day after our previous visit. This time, we went in our own car, our venerable 28-year-old Opel Astra, which cruised sweetly through the rolling French countryside as if it enjoyed stretching its wheels. There's no denying it's quite a long drive at approximately 500km, but it's not a hard one. The most taxing part is around Lille, which encompasses a huge urban sprawl, but we were able to escape most of that by ducking a bit east and following the road around Tournai. After that, there's a relatively short stretch of the A1 to Paris before we turned off onto the A26 south to Reims. I must say I was highly entertained by our Google maps lady (whom I named Karen), telling us to take the exit onto the A26 and just stay on it for 157km. As soon as she said that, she shut up and went to sleep until we reached the ring road around Reims.

I've never been much of a fan of these Satnav apps before, but I was very grateful to Karen on this trip. She was very useful everywhere except in the city of Chaumont, the capital of Haute-Marne, where she definitely got several wires crossed and had us going down a tiny track we could barely find a way to extract ourselves from. After that, she got in a total tizz and we had to switch her off to recover herself. But apart from this brief fit, she was a tower of strength and led us not only to my daughter's village, but also to Joinville, the Marne river and various other locations in this stunning part of France.

For most of the week, we stayed local, as we were there to help with the house and start cleaning the junk of ages from the barn and workrooms attached to the house. There's a lot of clearing up to do, some roof repairs needed and some serious decorating to be done, but the house itself is perfectly fine. While a bit cold and lacking in creature comforts, we were all grateful for the furniture that had been left behind. But even that mattered little when given the lovely environs, kind people and tranquillity of the farmlands around the village.

The French have not had the best reputation when it comes to welcoming strangers in their midst, but Haute-Marne has to be the greatest exception to this (underserved, in my opinion) rule. The villagers are warm, welcoming and very friendly. We've had lovely exchanges with many of them, but the absolute highlight for me was our visit to the local council offices (the Mairie). My daughter is at the early stages of learning French, but they were so kind and so encouraging when she explained what she was there for. The mayor himself joined in, asking her which house she'd bought, and when she told him, he was full of congratulations. It really was a joy to experience.

As for our brief excursions, Joinville is a beautiful town on the Marne and still more attractive to us because of its parallel canal. It reminded me of a mini Seville, with its narrow streets and ancient, shuttered houses. Chaumont, on the other hand, is an impressive city with a jaw-dropping railway viaduct. Set on a steep hill with its basilica at the top, it overlooks the Marne valley with stupendous views. Unfortunately, the afternoon we went there, it was rainy and overcast, but I can imagine the scenery and the city are stunning on a sunny day.

Here are a few of the photos I took:

The canal through Joinville

Lovely traditional blue shutters on the houses

A park next to the canal in Joinville

Joinville

Restful tranquillity in the Joinville park

Joinville

The canal between Champagne and Burgundy at
Gudmont

Gudmont in the commune of Villiers

The railway viaduct at Chaumont

Looking through the viaduct at Chaumont

Altogether, it was quite an intense but very enjoyable week in the heart of France's Grand Est region. We'll definitely be spending more time there in future. There is so much history and so much beauty in the area. I haven't even mentioned any of it here, but there will be more to come, that's for sure.

Have a good week allemaal, and I'll fill you in on some of the history we encountered next time.