Cloudy with one or two patches of drizzle, 14-20deg, 185km but only 10km of that from motels to railway stations counts towards the total of 1,000km. What a way to bring up the 1,000km!
Had an early start to catch a 7:08am train from Metz to Reims which departed on time to the second . Our bikes went in a special spot, hanging from the front wheel in the first carriage. We virtually had the train to ourselves until other stops when more passengers got on. Arrived Reims at 9:55am, 13 minutes before the scheduled time. French Rail works nicely. We have a couple of days on the train in order to avoid some less interesting and hilly areas.
Today was all about Champagne, Vranken Pommery Champagne to be precise. We planned our arrival in Reims in order to take a very popular underground tour of the Pommery Winery. Thanks to chalk mining dating back to Roman times they have the perfect facility for storing and aging champagne. There are 300km of tunnels under the city of Reims in total, Pommery has 18km, all at a cool 10deg for their 20,000,000 bottles of the bubbly stuff. Photography was difficult due to the low light and the ban on using a flash. No winery tour would be complete without a tasting. It was a very nice drop, but at A$14.50 per small glass it should have been.
Reims is also within the area of the WW1 Western Front Battlefields so like most cities that were in the German firing line it just about got flattened. Thanks to the USA and other generous benefactors it was rebuilt in grand style and is now a lovely city.
Our tour of the Western Front starts tomorrow when we reach the region of the Somme where the Australia Divisions did most of their fighting in Europe during WW1.