{"id":968,"date":"2012-07-20T19:07:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T18:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=968"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:24:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:24:33","slug":"bubbles-the-bike-but-no-champagne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/07\/20\/bubbles-the-bike-but-no-champagne\/","title":{"rendered":"Bubbles The Bike, But No Champagne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Showers, boiled eggs, fix bike, clean bikes, check emails, check weather report, hop on bubbles my bike and off we went, in to Chalons en Champagne, at last.\u00a0 We cycled around and around, saw more brilliant roundabouts, including one that had a very impressive dancing water fountain.<\/p>\n

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Another brilliant roundabout, but we have no idea who he is….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We did stop for a two-course lunch at Le Comptoir de la Licorne in the Place Marechal Foch and then we cycled around even more, through parks and down roads we had already cycled down.\u00a0 I think we had it covered!!!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Hotel de l’Intendance in Chalons en Champagne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was quite a warm day; well it felt like it while cycling around, and I needed a shower when we got back.\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping the weather in England will have improved by the time we get back there on Monday.\u00a0 We met a Londoner in the campsite who borrowed our campervan manual.\u00a0 He had driven up from Spain with an alarm going and a light flashing to say the oil in his van is low, which apparently, it is not and it\u2019s driving him insane.\u00a0 He told us that he now lives in Spain but that it is \u201cso bloody hot down there\u201d that he and his wife are visiting England to cool down a bit.\u00a0 I hope they\u2019ve packed their raincoats!<\/p>\n

This morning we drove up to and through Reims and still no sign of a vineyard.\u00a0 Rodney may have glimpsed one on a distant hill, but all I saw were wheat fields and one big field full of sunflowers.\u00a0 Maybe they should plant some more vines and the price of champagne could then come down\u2026..perhaps?!!!!<\/p>\n

After Reims we started to see memorials for the 1st<\/sup> and 2nd<\/sup> World Wars along the very straight Chemin les Dames.\u00a0 We stopped in Laon, a lovely old town which was built on top of a mound with an oversized cathedral in the centre.\u00a0 Arriving as the bells struck midday, we expected the town to be closed for lunch\u2026..and it was!!!.<\/p>\n

\"\"
We didn’t eat lunch here…….!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cathedral felt like it should have had hundreds of people shuffling around inside, but there were only a few tourists.\u00a0 There was however, some beautiful haunting choral music playing through some speakers, which did give the place a very spiritual feeling.<\/p>\n

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The Notre Dame Cathedral, Laon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Ardon Gate, Laon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u00a0were really pleased to find\u00a0a small Asian restaurant nearby and tucked in to some different flavours, then after a bit more of a stroll around the streets, we fired up Eileen again.<\/p>\n

We have decided that signposting in France is abysmal.\u00a0 You follow one sign and then any further directions to that place completely disappear.\u00a0 Rodney\u2019s latest theory is that it is to confuse any future invading armies.\u00a0 We think they may also have corrupted the GPS system tin France, as following instructions to drive through the centre of a vineyard, or cross a river without a bridge or boat, would have to slow the troops down?!!!\u00a0 It certainly slows us down and we\u2019re not a tank.\u00a0 To tell the truth we ignored those GPS directions and stayed on the tarmac.<\/p>\n

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Eileen on the battlefields<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We passed St Quentin and Peronne and at 4pm \u201cCome On Eileen\u2019 by Dexy\u2019s Midnight Runners suddenly blasted out from the radio.\u00a0 We both sang along in our bad, loud, out-of-tune styles.\u00a0 Then as the final lines rang out, we passed another British war cemetery and Whitney Houston started to sing the slightly more appropriate\u00a0\u2018I Will Always Love You’, which instantly put us both\u00a0into a more pensive mood.\u00a0 We stopped briefly near Bullecourt and read about the Australian battlefield track in 1917 and also went to the Australian memorial on the edge of town.\u00a0 We finally pulled up at Camping La Paille Haute in Boiry Notre Dame near to Arras.\u00a0 We had hoped to cycle in to Arras tomorrow, but we\u2019re not\u00a0really close\u00a0enough, so we\u2019re currently eating up today\u2019s French stick, cheeses and salamis and reassessing our plans for our last few days in France.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Showers, boiled eggs, fix bike, clean bikes, check emails, check weather report, hop on bubbles my bike and off we went, in to Chalons en Champagne, at last.\u00a0 We cycled around and around, saw more brilliant roundabouts, including one that had a very impressive dancing water fountain. We did stop for a two-course lunch at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8182,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/8182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}