In the Argonne region alone, 150,000 were violently obliterated Ghosts remain of the First World War. You swoosh past Vimy ridge and think of Edmund Blunden's haunting observation about bombardment that "the tired air groans", or Siegfried Sassoon's appalling, bitter-sweet: "I'd like to see a Tank come down the stall/ Lurching to rag-time tunes of 'Home, Sweet Home'."The bleak chalk hills of Champagne have produced many great writers, including Racine, La Fontaine, Alexandre Dumas p? and Paul Claudel. The last, a native of Villeneuve-sur-F?, near Ch?au-Thierry in the valley of the Marne, remarked at a crucial moment in the First World War: "Gentlemen, in the short moment allowed us between the crisis and catastrophe ... we may as well enjoy a glass of champagne." That magnificent French inclination to luxury; that clever distinction between the possibilities of now and the inevitabilities of later It may be dismal, but it's encouraging. Two and a bit hours, and we are there.Reims is the capital of Champagne, but it was closed on Sunday afternoon.
Some optimistic R?is claim that the name derives from Romulus's feral brother Remus. Maybe, but we want a drink and dinner, not fanciful ancient history, so we drive straight over the Montagne de Reims, a 12-by-six-mile mass of oak, pine and beech that defines the southern views from the city. Our destination is Epernay, which Victor Hugo described as "La ville du vin de champagne, rien de plus, rien de moins". Epernay is where you find Mo?& Chandon, Perrier Jou? and many of the other great houses whose primary product adds dignity to duty frees everywhere.
It is also where you find the H? Les Berceaux, our destination.No matter how hungry, it is a moral and practical requirement to walk around any new town immediately you have dumped your bags. But first, the H? Les Berceaux, one of the very few passable hotels in Epernay. A nearly pretty, rambling brick-and-tile structure, evidence of apathy can be found in fragments of Christmas trees attached to balconies, and to a prominent notice celebrating the establishment's anniversary.. in 1989. Half-hearted renovations have left rooms in that challenging shade of orange found only in the French provinces. Budgets did not extend to new carpet in the stairwell, although there is an ambitious installation of champagne bottles beneath a glass panel in the lobby I think this aspired to be art I know it failed. Beds are small and uncomfortable - invitations to insomnia more than intimacy.Epernay itself is cruelly dull, a mixture of neglect and that misplaced optimism of the French that finds expression in styles of modern architecture undiscovered by anyone else. There are all those other markers of depression: a shop called "Chic Discount"; another called "Sonia", whose artlessly mannequined vitrines demonstrate how styles that didn't catch on in London are racily dans le vent here.Back for dinner, Les Berceaux offers alternative dining somewhat like a Georges Feydeau farce, with the same waiter adopting different poses and offering different menus depending on whether you want Le Bistrot 7, on the left of the lobby, with its roaring gas fire and challenging whiff of curry, or the proprietor Patrick Michelon's gastronomic restaurant to the right.