We left the snail farm after buying a tray of Escargot for a meal one night. Our destination was Reims about 20kms away. The only motorhome aire in the town had very dodgy reports with people talking about homeless people around, drunks, drug addicts and perverts. As we had not planned to stay the night there we set our satnav to the place hoping they would not be hanging around during the day. As it turned out we saw the place from the motorway with plenty of motorhomes staying there but we missed a turn off and ended up in the town where we found an easy park very close to the cathedral, up until now we have been lucky with parking.
The cathedral is famous as it was used for the coronation of the Kings of France for many centuries.We were surprized the town was more interesting than we had thought as not much was written about Reims except for the cathedral. After about two and a half hours we returned to our parking place had lunch and went shopping.
Up until now we had shopped in smaller supermarkets so we though that Lori might like to see a big one. On the outskirts Reims there were plenty of options and we chose the E.Leclerc. The place was enormous and it took us an hour and a half to do a small shop. Our plan was to buy some delicacies to have for tea that night to go with our French champagne.
Another France Passion site was our overnight stop and this time it was a vegetable farm, but quite different from what we had expected. The place had a large range of vegetables, fruits and flowers and the customers would come take one of the wheel barrows as if it was a shopping trolley and go pick their own. They then went to the check out, payed for their goods and wheeled it out to their cars. Gives real meaning to the words “farm fresh”. The place has a few animals and they have school groups come where they explain how the vegetables and fruits are grown. A great concept and very popular as the carpark had a steady flow of customers. At 7.00 in the evening the place closed and we had the carpark to ourselves.
Champagne and French delicacies
That night the weather was perfect for eating outside so we set out our table with a fine selection of French food. If you look at the photo we had cheese, strawberries, figs, bread, prawns and salmon terrine . All washed down with the champagne that we bought a few days earlier on a France passion site. Very decadent, our taste buds were dancing.
In the morning we went into the garden to pick some vegetables. Our fridge is not large so we could only buy small quantities, no wheel barrow was needed. On Sunday we plan to visit Paris for a few days so we have decided to go to a small campsite and catch up with the washing and spend the rest of the time “busy doing nothing”. The campsite is a municipal one, which means that it is run by the local council. These are usual basic places and are reasonably priced. We paid for the site, 3 people and electricity 16 euros per day. [That’s $24 Australian]. A chance to do some washing and a break from all the sightseeing. This is the 17th day of our trip and as we have been staying with family, friends, on aires, on France Passions and one night at a campsite we have only spent 25 euros on accommodation.
