Eva on the Via Francigena (and beyond)

Song of the Day: Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

I like Cat Stevens (/ Yusuf) a lot, and I guarantee this won’t be the only song by him I will use here. In fact, this isn’t even one of his songs that I listen to the most. But as I woke up with the sun’s light still low, dew covering the monastery’s grassy lawns and rows of fruit trees, and mist hanging low over the vines, it felt like the most appropriate song for today.

I woke up at 7 with the plan to meet Giulia and Claire for breakfast at 7:30. Breakfast was simple: tea and a few slices of bread and butter. After we ate, I was compelled out of the monastery, across the street, to the boulangerie that was pumping out the smell of freshly baked pain au chocolat. I continued packing and snapped a photo with Giulia and Claire, and just before 9am I was on the road to Merfy, another town on the St. Thierry massif (one of the sub-regions within Champagne).

I’d realized shortly after waking up that the plan I had hatched yesterday, to hang around the monastery and walk in the late morning in order to do a champagne tour on the way, was not going to happen. Once I’m up I get antsy and want to get on the road, and the idea of champagne anytime before the afternoon made me feel a little queasy. And it was going to be a hot day: 86 degrees (30 Celsius). I didn’t want to have to do much walking in the noon-5pm period (it stays hot remarkably late in this part of France, I have noticed). So, I was off in the mid-morning, walking on the sidewalk of the road to Merfy past stone houses and champagne vineyards. After Merfy I turned left and picked up the official VF path, which I would eventually discover, was on asphalt almost the entire way into Reims.

I descended from the massif onto the flat farmland below, swapping out Champagne vines for my familiar friends: sugar beets. I passed few cars on the road and a few cyclists. I turned around briefly and could see the monastery through the trees, with the vineyards below it.

There was no sidewalk and this was a D-road, but for the most part it felt fine, though there was a bridge over the motorway and a curve immediately after that puts the walker in an uncomfortable position: Do I stay on the left side of the road, where the people coming toward me won’t see me till they round the curve, or do I cross knowing that the people behind me won’t see me till they are over the bridge? Given the sound of the motorway below it was hard to know if I would hear cars coming, so I darted from left to right based on where I determined I would be most visible. In the end, no cars came by, so it wasn’t a bit deal.

Shortly after this fun exercise in physics and geometry (at what angle am I visible? If their speed is 50 km/hour, how much time will I have till the car reaches me?) I turned off onto another farm path that connected me with a canal. At this point it was after 10am and the August sun was bearing down. And, unfortunately, the canal path had no shade at all. I tried to set a good pace to get out of the sun as quickly as possible, and marched past old factories and the increasing signs that I was entering a proper city. After about 45 minutes I reached my turn-off and headed into the city center toward the Cathedral.

Reims is the largest city I will be in between here and Rome, and this was not necessarily a positive development, at least initially. I arrived and was dumbfounded by the Cathedral, unsurprisingly. I had read that the Reims Cathedral’s facade had been inspired by that in Laon, so I was expecting something simliar to the Laon Cathedral. But this church is absolutely massive. It’s hard to compare since the settings are so different, but it is huge, and incredibly detailed as well — every square inch of the facade is covered with decoration. It really is incredible to behold. My back starting to ache, I wandered inside looking for a pilgrim stamp, but learned that the pilgrim services booth would be open from 14:00-18:00. I sat for a bit, admiring the space, before determining that it was time for lunch.

This is where the big-city thing became a bit of a problem. If you’ve been following my journey so far, you’ll know that basically everywhere I have passed through has either had nothing open at all, or at best one restaurant / bakery to choose from. I haven’t had to really think much about where to eat since Arras (even that had limited options) and before that Dover. Reims, being a large city and a popular day-trip from Paris, has a lot of restaurants, most of which were open, even in August. All of them were more expensive than anywhere else I have been on this trip (excluding the Bapaume hotel restaurant). I was facing decision paralysis, I was hot, and I was hungry — a lethal combination. I finally decided to walk 10 minutes to a bistro I had seen a recommendation for, only to arrive and find it was closed, though Google said it was open. I could wait 30 mins and see if it would open at 12 (likely, but not guaranteed given it is August), but there was no where in the shade to sit, and no cafes nearby. So I trudged back to the Cathedral and sat down in the shade, hangry, to figure out where to go next.

I dug into my reserve peanuts and the nun’s chocolate I had purchased the day before, which did enough to stabilize my mood in combination with the cool marble I was sitting on. I called a champagne house to make a booking for an afternoon tour and tasting, and got back to researching restaurants, finally deciding on a well-enough rated brasserie that was not too expensive. I headed over and took a seat outside, ordering escargot, steak frites, and a glass of burgundy —if I was going to indulge, might as well go all-in. The wine was good, simple and refreshing (mostly tasting of cherry and dried herbs) and the food was fine, not fantastic. I sat for over an hour chatting with the American family next to me on vacation. With still 30 minutes left until check-in, I went in search of a well-regarded wine bar nearby (closed for August) and finally decided to just wait it out in front of my hotel.

I checked into my hotel right at 2, and discovered that the room I booked which it said was air conditioned was not. I showed her my booking confirmation, and she looked at it and nodded. “Yes, see it says that on your confirmation because some of the rooms are air-conditioned, but not the single rooms. I can give you a…I don’t know the word in English… ventilateur.” Getting flashbacks to my arguments with my Italian landlady over what constitutes air conditioning, I accepted the fan and headed to my hot room. This was an unfortunate (but unsurprising) development, as today was the hottest so far, and even at night it would not get below 75 degrees. Oh well, so it goes.

After a shower and some rest, I headed back out. First to the Cathedral, where I signed my name in the pilgrim log and received my stamp. Then I caught the bus across town to GH Martel, a champagne house founded in 1869 by a German man, and then eventually taken over by a local family. They’ve built a substantial business through acquisition of other small houses. The tour itself was interesting — we were brought down into the chalk caves where wine used to be stored (they now have a premises in Epernay). The caves used to be chalk quarries, then were used to store beer for a brewery, before eventually being used for Champagne. He also walked through the steps of making Champagne in limited detail. This information I knew already from my WSET course (which, by the way, I just learned a few days ago that I passed with distinction!) but it was very cool to see the bottles up close. They also had a cellar, now empty, that had been reserved for bottles created for Maxim’s restaurant in Paris.

Upstairs, we tasted 3 champagnes. I had paid a bit more for the “premium” package — why not, for 10 Eur more — and first tasted their “Cuvée Victoria” Brut by G.H. Martel & Co, which like all of their higher-end champagnes ages 5 years on the lees before disgorgement (much longer than the minimum 15 months for non-vintage champagne). It was made with 50% Pinot noir, 30% Chardonnay and 20% Meunier, which meant it had more body and roundness than a blanc de blancs. The time on the lees gave the wine strong aromas of brioche and nuts – very tasty. The next wine was a rose Champagne, which is generally not my favorite. It was a good wine, much fruitier naturally with raspberry notes, but not really to my tastes. At this point I was starting to sink down in my chair — even with the tasting glasses, after walking 12 miles or so in the heat (and much lower daily wine consumption than in Rome), the two glasses of champagne had gone right to my head. I tried to focus on the third champagne to write some sort of half-hearted tasting note but ultimately decided against it. I will say it was my favorite of the 3. It was a vintage champagne (2017), also 5 years sur lie, and the same makeup as the first champagne. Too tired to think about primary, secondary, and tertiary aromas, I made a mental note that it was delicious and went off in search of water.

Following the tasting, I headed in the direction of Les Halles (the market) in search of more food. However, when I arrived, the market was almost entirely deserted save one fruit & veg stall. Perhaps I should have come in the morning. I realized I was right by a seafood spot I had seen recommended, so plopped down for a glass of extra brut blanc de blancs (I am definitely a fan of the extra brut / pas dosage trend, personally), some oysters from Brittany and a bit of smoked salmon. An indulgence, yes, but I was here in Reims to rest and relax!

I walked back to my hotel and my left calf, which had been bothering me for the better part of the afternoon, was really starting to act up. I didn’t think I had pulled it — it had randomly started hurting while in the church getting my stamp — so I wasn’t sure if it maybe was a cramp due to dehydration. Either way I knew it was now hurting to walk. Also, 4 glasses (admittedly, 3 were not full-sized) of champagne later, and I was exhausted and tired of spending money. I settled on a kebab for dinner near by hotel and headed back to my hot and humid room to try and rehydrate while watching more of All Quiet on the Western Front. Eventually, quite late, I headed to bed, looking forward to my first of two rest days tomorrow.

Final mileage: 7.02 mi
Walking time: 2h 21m
Elevation gain: 70 ft

Accommodation: Hotel Cecyl — the cheapest hotel I could find in the city center (I don’t like staying near train stations whenever possible, but there were cheaper options in that area). Would not recommend given the inaccurate advertising regarding air conditioning, but otherwise it was a reasonably decent hotel.