Aldoblog

Photos of our meal from Gerard Boyer are up in the photos section. This was the best meal of our trip to France, and the most expensive. We both had the fixed price lunch of the day, with the only difference being our desserts.

Latest photos from France (yes, I’m still working on this), of the stone markers used to indicate which fields belong to which houses. We passed hundreds of these while driving in the countryside around Reims and Epernay.

This last weekend Rochelle and I went to visit friends who moved to Las Vegas four months ago. Our friends, now officially locals, took us on a whirlwind tour of their favorites, mostly bars.

We had originally intended to have dinner at the restaurant in our hotel only once, on our first full day in France, but had ended up eating there our first night because we were too tired to go elsewhere. So when we arrived for dinner for which we had actual reservations, we were greeted even more warmly than the previous evening.

After we toured Taittinger, we visited Piper Heidsieck and Maxim’s. Our tour at Piper was sort of like the rides at Disneyland, where you are in a car on a track, and you visit various tableau, with commentary as you go. Maxim’s was our first “short” tour, where we skipped the caves.

Our first Maison de Champagne, or House of Champagne, was Taittinger. “Maison” is a term generally reserved for the larger champagne producers, and most of the major houses give tours of their extensive tunnels, and take justifiable pride in them. Our tour at Taittinger was fascinating, descending into the tunnels and seeing more champagne than we ever imagined existed in one place at a time.

A quick update that the photos of our trip to France are starting to come online. I’ll try to upload them in sync with the weblog postings. The first ones are of the Cathedral of Reims.

Our first real day in France began when the cleaning folks came into our room, because we forgot to put up the Do Not Disturb sign. We quickly got up, showered, dressed, and fled the hotel in search of food and fun.

While our trip to France began poorly, fortunately for our sanity, we quickly recovered. Driving from Charles De Gaulle to our hotel just outside of Reims took about two hours. And our hotel, L’Assiette Champenoise, was wonderful.

Our trip to France included some of the worst travel experiences either Rochelle or I have had. Between losing most of our luggage, some of it for days, some of it permanently, and the almost complete indifference to same, we’re quite unhappy with Virgin Atlantic.