We discovered that there was another event happening in Epernay that we thought we should check out. It was called the Ballon Soirée. (Drinks at the balloon). We have seen the Ballon Captif -Epernay from our terrace numerous times. It is a balloon that rises 150 meters to view the surrounding vineyards. The event was free , however we found it not very exciting and did not want to pay 20 euros for ONE glass of champers, so we opted to go to a local wine bar and had a lovely glass of rose instead!

We spent a fabulous day wandering the streets of Troyes, a city that was briefly the Capital of France in the 15th Century. It is the city with the most number of our loved colombages, timber framed houses in France, over 3000 of them so beware lots of photos to follow.

The Old City is known as Le Bouchon, ( the cork) because it is shaped like a champagne cork lying on its side! How French! We think it actually looks more like a condom!😂

One of the main attractions is the Ruelle des Chats or Cat Street. We have read 2 explanations, one is that the street is so narrow cats can jump from one side of the street to the other side of the street on the rooftops. The other is an ancient mis spelling , it should have been ruelle des chas, or eye of the needle. The second seems more appropriate considering how narrow the street was.

The beautiful 17th Century Mansion Rachi is the original Synagogue in the Old Jewish Quarter of Troyes.

The Rue Champeaux is the main historical street in the Old Town. It was great wandering the cobbled streets admiring the gorgeous houses on each side.

The Renaissance style Hotel de Chapelaines was a mansion built in the late 1500’s by a “dyer of fabrics”. Louis X111 and the Tsar Alexander have been guests throughout the years. There are many sculptures throughout the city but the one we liked most was on the canal du Trevois. It was titled “Wait for me”. If you look closely you will see a dog trying to chase after the geese.

The Basilica of Saint Urbain is classed as “ a pure joy of Gothic Art”. Unfortunately we couldn’t entree as it was Sunday and a service was in progress.

The Town Hall was built in the 17th Century partially from the revenue from wine and salt taxes. It now has the obligatory town sign out the front which makes for a good photo opportunity. The Apothicairerie de Hotel-Dieu-Le Comte is the 18th Century Apothecary and is now a museum. It was still preparing medicines up until 1961.

The Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul has a reputation of having one of the most stunning collections of stained glass windows in France. We have to agree and we have been to quite a few churches over our years of travel.

The cathedral was built over 7 centuries and was never fully completed. It is missing the South Tower but due to the lack of money it was never built.

Our walk took us to some out of the way shady squares like the Square-des-3-Godets, Square of 3 buckets. Mind you we saw no buckets anywhere! We did warn you at the beginning we had a lot of photos of colombages so here are just a few more!

We had a great time and absolutely loved the city of Troyes. We came home to another delicious pasta dinner cooked by Chef Greg however our normal Italian deli had unfortunately decided to go “on vacance” and shut up shop for holidays. How rude! Luckily we found another option HOWEVER our previous pasta dishes cost us 5 euros to feed us both, this one cost us 16 euros!!!!

Considering that Luxembourg was not too far from Epernay, we decided to have a couple of nights there to see what it was like. Our “travelling day” insisted of 3 meals in 3 different countries. Our breakfast was in France, our lunch was a picnic in. Belgium and our dinner was in Luxembourg!

Luxembourg is Europes 7th smallest country and one of the least populated. The historic Old Town is a UNESCO listed Heritage Site. We checked into our hotel and walked up to the Old Town. One of the first buildings we saw was the Bank of the State. We thought that if all the buildings in Lux are like this, it is going to be a stunning place to visit.

We had a pre dinner drink and decided that we needed pizza for dinner. It was really good, we were a little surprised and we had a lovely bottle of Italian red. First impressions of Lux were great and those impressions continued the next day.

We spent all the next day wandering around the Old Town doing a self guided walk. We began the day with a Brunetti style breakfast with “Shanks” and coffee.

We then walked along the Chemin de La Corniche which includes part of the fortifications and is also called “the most beautiful balcony in Europe”. It runs along the old rampart walls and was built by the French and Spaniards in the 17th Century. It gave us great views, and of course plenty of photo ops!

The definition of a corniche is a road or walkway built on the side of a mountain with terrain steeply rising on one side and falling away on the other. That is exactly what it was, absolutely stunning. It overlooks the Alzette River and the lower part of the town known as the Grund.

Luckily for us there was a lift to take us down to the Grund which is Luxembourg’s oldest district. It is described as “ a village within a city” and is extremely picturesque. We loved wandering around and of course Greg had some great reflections.

We wondered about the mermaid statue (Melusian Statue). Briefly, legend has it that a Count who founded Lux in 963 married Melusian the mermaid on the condition that every 7 days she had to be alone in absolute privacy!

Over the years jealousy overcame the Count and he followed to secretly watch her take a bath and discovered that her bottom half was a fish tail. Melusian became aware of him watching and she disappeared into the river and he never saw her again.

Tragic, but you have to love those legends.

We then ascended back to the Village Haute and continued our tour. The Grand Ducal Palace is where the Grand Duke of Luxembourg works, not a bad office space we thought. A part of the main building remains from the 1700s. A huge renovation work began in 1895. It was seized by the German occupying forces in WW11 and converted into a concert hall and tavern. It certainly is a magnificent building.

We managed to find the oldest bar, of course, Ennert de Steiler in Lux and we desperately needed to have a drink. It has been a pub since 1842 and Greg enjoyed a Bofferding beer, a local brand from Lux’s largest brewery.

We decided we needed to taste some authentic Luxembourg food, so for dinner we headed to a traditional restaurant. The Kniddelen, although quite “heavy” was really tasty. It consisted of flour dumplings in a cream and bacon sauce. The Judd mat gaardebounen is slow cooked pork collar with broad beans. They were certainly different but glad we tried them.

We really enjoyed our short stay in Lux. We walked about 20 kms during the day so as you can imagine, Greg’s knees paid the price but it was worth it and the odd beer or 2 certainly helped.

We are now into our last few days in Epernay and we have our mate Al, who has joined us. The champagne is still flowing , speaking of which it must be time to have one!

So it’s that time AGAIN!

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

xx