![\"Sunday.](\"https:\/\/thechaingang.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Sunday.-Finally-the-dogs-get-to-see-the-rabbit-at-Champagne-Joseph-Perrier-in-Chalons-Champagne-1.jpg\")
<\/a>What went wrong in 2022?<\/h3>\n
The worst thing of all is that it rained! Just one day, on the first tour, in June. But we were in the Montagne de Reims, lots of hills, a picnic was no longer an option, so we had to find a restaurant to eat – even more hills! And I got us lost on the way into Reims. A long, hard day in the rain!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But there was more to it than that. The tour in 2022 was a bit too hard. The hotel on our 2nd night was under new ownership, following the Covid pandemic – the worst hotel owner I’ve met in the history of The Chain Gang. <\/p>\n I say to my guides ‘stuff goes wrong, so we must get everything right when you can, especially at the beginning of the week. If there’s a problem on Thursday after a wonderful 5 days, we’ll be forgiven. If there’s no dinner on the first night, we’re not forgiven, and we don’t deserve to be!’<\/p>\n The wine growing area around Champagne is basically based around three areas of high ground – from North to South they are the Massif de Saint Thierry, the Montagne de Reims and the cotes des Blancs. <\/p>\n There are very few hotels to the North of Reims, almost none. In the Dordogne, or Provence, there are always alternatives. If one of our regular hotels is full, we stay down the road – sometimes literally next door! North of Reims, there are no alternative hotels. One of the hotels we’d chosen before Covid was bought, by an absolute clown. The hotel for our Sunday night was transformed from the gastronomic highlight of the week, to the most chaotic hotel we’ve used in 27-years of The Chain Gang. We couldn’t stay there again. <\/p>\n My first epiphany was that we couldn’t do anything to the North of Reims – for two reasons. Firstly, the lack of hotels. But secondly, in the area around the Massif de Saint Thierry there are lots of significant First World War sites – the Chemin des Dames, the Plateau of California, the very earliest trenches from a war that became defined by trenches. But on reflection, everything north of Reims was about the French and Germans. Interesting, but not the same frisson as we get in Normandy on the landing beaches – sorry Pierre, sorry Fritz!<\/p>\n , the administrative capital of Champagne. And a prettier city, frankly, than Reims or \u00c9pernay, because it didn’t get razed to the ground in the First World War.<\/p>\n We spend 2 days in the C\u00f4te des Blancs, the range of hills west of Chalons and south of \u00c9pernay, where Chardonnay grapes are grown. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We explore the Marne Valley, upstream and downstream from \u00c9pernay, where most of the pinot meunier is grown (pinot noir and chardonnay won’t ripen in this valley downstream of \u00c9pernay). We cycle over the Montagne de Reims, where most of the Pinot Noir is grown, spend a day exploring Reims, which really is an extraordinary city, and finally make our way back over the Montagne de Reims, through some of the most prestigous champagne growing villages of all (pinot noir, obvs!) and back to Chalons. <\/p>\n<\/a>What about lunch?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>What, more hills?<\/h3>\n
Add that lot together, and it was back to the drawing board for an all-new Champagne Tour.<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/a>We start and finish in Ch\u00e2lons-en-Champagne<\/h3>\n
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