Last night I ate my dessert from Ladurée and it was so delicious. The texture was light and creamy and it literally melted in my mouth. The sweetness was delicate making it very easy to enjoy. I can’t wait to enjoy my next Ladurée master piece.
This morning I made the short walk down rue de Rivoli, which runs alongside the Louvre, to meet my tour group. As in all cities, there are many homeless in Paris. At night, men sleep out in the open on cardboard with their head in a large cardboard box. To keep warm, they sleep on a metro grate where the warm air blows up from beneath. During the day, they sleep literally anywhere on the footpath, in any pose, including flat on one’s back, arms stretched out to the side and legs splayed out like a frog. It’s a little sad, but sometimes it can look quite funny!!
I’m currently on the bus to Champagne. The tour guides are relaying messages in five different languages including English, French, Portuguese, Mandarin and Japanese. We've just been told to “take the same seat each time we come back to the bus to avoid international conflicts” How hilarious!! It makes me wonder what’s occurred in the past to prompt such a message!
Our first stop was to the G.H.Mumm Champagne House in Reims. Here we learnt about the making of Champagne in this famous Champagne Region. It is a fascinating process, particularly the riddling process which removes the sediment following the double fermentation process. I must admit that I did have some trouble concentrating on what our Mumm guide had to say as we progressed through the Champagne caves due to my eagerness to progress to the Champagne tasting. And once we finally were able to taste the Champagne, I chose the Mumm Cordon Rouge Demi-Sec and it was everything I expected and more. It was so good that I couldn’t help but buy a bottle to bring home with me. It is divine!!
We then went into the town of Reims where we were given a quick tour of the ‘Cathedral of Our Lady of Rheims’ (note this is spelt correctly slightly differing to the town name) which is where all early French Royalty conducted their coronation ceremonies. The Cathedral looks quite similar to Notre Dame in Paris both inside and out with its gothic designs and statues telling similar stories. I believe that it might also be just slightly larger than Notre Dame which may be accredited to its royal significance.
During this part of the tour I met Brian, Danny and Paul, some other Australians on the tour and they kindly invited me to join them for lunch. I graciously accepted and had a really lovely time chatting with them and hearing of their travels. They’d also done the tour of the battlefields and had been at the Menin Gate for the last post on Friday Asha and I were there and at Villers-Bretonneux for ANZAC day. But the highlight of joining these gentlemen for lunch was the opportunity to try escargot. They were all returning to Melbourne on the following day and it was one of the things on their ‘to do’ list. I told them it was on my list as well and with safety in numbers and some champagne courage on our (my) side we all decided to try them. We ordered 12 garlic and herb escargots to share and each had three. To my surprise they were actually quite good and wonderfully cooked. I would liken them to a fresh beautifully cooked garlic prawn. For me, who won’t even eat our Coat of Arms, it felt like quite a personal achievement and one to be proud of! Woo Hoo! For lunch I also enjoyed a Salmon (raw) and shrimp salad. I’m enjoying many fresh salmon salads whilst over here. Its so very flavoursome and fresh.
During our journey to Epernay we passed the small village of Hautvilliers, which was the village of Dom Perignon who created the double fermentation method which results in Champagne. Our next stop was to the home of Dom Perignon and Moet & Chandon. They have some of the largest cellars in France. There, I was also able to smell the Lily of the Valley flowers they had displayed and they smelled exactly as the macaroon, I enjoyed yesterday, tasted! Amazing!!
At Moet & Chandon we basically received a similar tour to the one we’d received at Mumm, except they double the cellar times of their traditional and vintage champagnes. Instead of being cellared for 15 months their traditional champagne is cellared for 3 years, and instead of 3 years their vintage champagne is cellared for 6 – 7 years. Vintage champagne is only produced from a good years quality yield, therefore a vintage champagne is generally not produce every year, but rather every 2 -3 years. Dom Perignon is only produced as a vintage as homage to the creator of Champagne. Therefore now armed with this knowledge, I have a new hero – Dom Perignon!! At the gift shop, I couldn’t afford a Dom bubbly so I bought a Dom Perignon apron instead, but I could afford Moet & Chandon so I also got a bottle of that to bring home!!
When I got home at 7 pm, Asha and I were going to have a picnic on Pont des Arts, however it was raining so we sat on the floor of the apartment and enjoyed our picnic at home with the movies “I love you Man” and Kath & Kim” instead. Our picnic consisted of a baguette, brie and dry sausage (which is like mild salami). Despite drinking Mumm and Moet & Chandon all day we got smashed on a 6 Euro bottle of Demi- Sec Gratien & Meyer Saumur bottle of Champas and it was greache!! WE LOVE PARIS!!
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