I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven.
We stayed in an AirBNB near Montlevon last night. Not really in Montlevon, but a bit north of it. Condé-en-Brie is also nearby, as is Château-Thierry.
If you type “Les Bories en Champagne” into Google Maps, you will see a photo of the place where we are staying.
We woke this morning at about 7.00am, which is about 4.00pm your time, assuming that you are in Brisbane. I hadn’t slept well, but there are probably a million reasons for that. Sleeping in a strange bed in a building that is probably a few hundred years od is part of that reason.
Echos of MBW screaming out “LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!!” every time I drifted onto the wrong side of the road is probably a reason too.
45 years in ingrained habits driving on the left side of the road are hard to break, and it all feels wrong … but we will get better. I’m certain we will.
I’ll be driving and honking my horn like a Frenchman in no time.
Because we only arrived here at about 5.30pm last night and had done a super-quick run down to the little supermarket in Condé-en-Brie to get some important supplies, we were not well prepared for breakfast. And breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as I’m sure that you know.
So we found Claude where we had left him last night, fired him up, and did a quick run down to the local boulangerie.
My goodness. Baguettes, croissants, pastries of all kind.
My goodness.
If MBW hadn’t been with me, I’d have asked the lady in the shop to marry me …
We purchased a baguette, a plain croissant and a chocolate croissant for breakfast, and headed home to have breakfast and coffee.
We bought some ground coffee last night, so we fired up the coffee machine and had breakast.
Not the best coffee and croissants that I’ve ever had … actually scratch that. It probably WAS the best coffee and croissants and baguette that I’ve ever had. With French butter and strawberry jam.
Sell my clothes, I think I’ve gone to Heaven.
I didn’t want it to end, it was soooooooooo good 🙂
We gave the house a quick tidy, and filled our little Thermos flasks that we bought cheap in Rovaniemi with boiling water and got some teabags ready to take with us.
We only had one important job to do today – get snow chains. As I’ve discussed before, I have absolutely no intention of using them, but we are required to carry them for some of the places where we will be going. Like Italy, before the middle of April.
I might even bring them home with me when we finally return home … assuming that I don’t run away and hide here in France.
If ever we (you and I) attend the same Christmas function in 2025 and you get an unopened set of snow chains in perfect condition as part of a Secret Santa gift, they will be from me.
Surprise!
I went out to Claude to get the engine started and the seat warmers* going for MBW, and poke some of the buttons on the dashboard to see what they do. I found a few nifty features that will be very handy on our roadtrip.
*Seat warmers are NOT one of those nifty features BTW, but MBW doesn’t need to know that.
We had managed to get Google Maps and Android Auto working, so that makes life a bit easier.
We programmed up “Château-Thierry” into Maps, and off we went. We were looking for a NorAuto – probably a bit like a Repco or Autobarn with a vehicle servicing facility on site.
Parked Claude and went inside, and we quickly established that the guy behind the counter had a better grasp on English than we have on French, and so we struck a deal.
€76.00 was the cheapest price for a set of snow chains that will meet the legal requiement. And they came in a nice carry case.
I’ve never purchased snow chains before, and I suspect I never will again.
To be honest, I expected that the store staff would laugh maniacally at us for buying snow chains in this warm weather, but the guy took it as a very serious transaction and happily took our money.
That was the only thing that we realy needed to do today, as we had decided to just “settle in” a bit and get our bearings.
Across the road from NorAuto was something that looked suspiciously like a shopping centre, and as we had nothing else important to do, we went over.
The place was like CostCo (or Wamart). They sell almost everything, from groceries to clothes to homewares. And alcohol.
But no guns that i saw.
Given that we will be travelling around quite a bit, we purchased some plates and cutlery for those days that we stop and have lunch at the side of the road, plus an esky bag and some other things that we didn’t need.
MBW announced that she hadn’t brought enough short-sleeved tops on holidays (… a likely story …), so she found something in her size and added it to the pile.
BTW the shop is called E.Leclerc if you ever find yourself in Château-Thierry and need to buy some things that you don’t need.
Sorry, that pobably sounded like sarcasm 🙁 I’ll ping myself on my next performance review.
We were going to buy some groceries to put into our new esky bag, but it was only 10.30am and a bit early for lunch, and the things that we wanted to put onto our baguette for lunch are likely to give explosive diarrhea if not refrigerated correctly, and ED was not something that we particularly wanted.
So we went to look at a medieval castle instead.
My tiny brain simply could not appreciate the spectacular beauty of the place, and nor the fact that it was built in the 10th century. A million pictures cannot do it justice, but I’ve included some below anyway.
One of the good things about medieval castles is that they are built at the top of a hill, with sweeping view all around. And from this medieval castle, we could see some street markets just down below, so we hopped back into Claude and went looking.
We found the markets, and then found a parking space, so we got out and went for a walk.
Nothing particularly exciting, and we didn’t buy anything. But it was fun to poke aound.
We listened to people speaking French and wondered what they were talking about. Probably about us.
By this tme we were getting hungry and needed to get some stuff for lunch. MBW found an Aldi (… seriously, it’s like a sixth sense …) and so we bought stuff for lunch and also for dinner tonight.
Everywhere you look around here, all you see is people walking around carrying a baguette. It’s almost like it is a national sport.
So not to be outdone, we bought a baguette and some ham and cheese, plus we got some potatoes, salad and steak for dinner.
Home to Les Bories en Champagne, and we ate lunch like Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen).
And it was good. So good.
I’m not going to bore you will all of the minutia of our lives, because that would be as boring as watching paint dry, but we did repack our suitcases to separate the stuff we will likely not need again from the stuff that we will, and that will make finding things just a bit easier in future.
Well, that’s the theory.
After all of that excitement, we jumped back into Claude and went for a drive down to Condé-en-Brie just for a poke around and take some photos. I mean, it’s not every day that you get to walk through a provincial French village where the houses are hundreds of years old, and you feel like you are on the set of Beauty and the Beast.
Some of the streets are like goat tracks – in fact I suspect that’s exactly what they were once. Tiny, narrow little streets between stone buildings. I’m glad I ddn’t bring the Landcruiser!
We are so lucky to be here doing this. Please reimnd me of that next time I complain about something trivial.
There are many things about this Airbnb that make it fun and interesting, and also cause you to wonder how they got building approval. Like doorways that are seriously low.
You don’t need to understand French to know what “Attention à la tête” means.
But I expect building approvals weren’t an accepted practice 500-1000 years ago when these places were built.
Back home to get ready for dinner and coffee.
Steak tonight and I’m cooking, so I’d best be off.
Ciao
#Europe2025