There once was a man from Lille

From Brussels in Belgium we headed to Lille in France to see our good friend from Armidale, Thibaut.  He put us up for 3 nights at his bachelors pad where and kept us well entertained; chocolate every meal in one form or another, flamin' banana pan fried with rum, microwaved banana with chocolate, crepes, markets, bowling, picnics, karaoke, guitar lessons, dodgy SFR Internet and  football celebrations as Lilles team won the French league amongst others! Thibauts friend Baptiste was also a great host and ended up spending a lot of time with us which was good.
Lille was wherewe collected our little Opal hire car (from now on known as Olivia). I can now say that driving her is a pleasure but the relationship to start was a but rocky. 2 minutes practice in the airport carpark on her left hand drive and manual box and I had it, so I thought; we/I hadn't taken into account the mad french drivers, the multitude of french road signs (whattttt do they all say?!? There's not enough time to read them all!!!), and that we didn't have the map book at the ready (no gps here; fortunately Manda is an extraordinary map reader!). Let's just say it got a little crazy!
Once on the open road, map book in hand, we successfully got to the "birthplace" of champagne, Epernay in north-eastern France. This to date is the only toll road we've taken (11€ for about 30 min!! Hence we're not looking to take too many more). Epernay plays host to all things important to champagne;
1. Home of monk Dom Peringon (who was integral to it's creation-being a monk is starting to sound good!)
2. Moet and Chandon who still are the official suppliers of the Royal family (their vintage drops highly recommended; taste them next to the always good normal expense stuff from Aus and notice the difference!) and who also produce the champagne called Don Peringon; their flagship line. Interestingly here a nice bottle of Moet like we get at home sells for 25€ here in their supermarkets. The good gear, vintage, sells for less than 50€! Bit of a bargain really!
3. Underground cellars. This is where it's all stored; millions of bottles are stowed away maturing. The cellars (Moet and Mercier perhaps two of the largest houses) have a combined total length of about 40km. Amazing.

The countryside in the region was spectacular and the perfect weather over our time here made it even more amazing; just to drive the back roads and see the vineyards, hills, fields of wheat etc and picture perfect little villages was blissful. And that was before the tastings! (which had a cost and generally include a tour at the larger places)
Epernay was our first campsite; for 13€ we got a private little tent site, showers etc and a beaut river view. Champagne not included and nor was wifi (both available at a price!). Little orange tent held up well but doesn't breathe well and ends up dripping with condensation in the morning. Can't complain for a 25€ tent thats smaller to carry than my sleeping bag. There will be more camping to come!!!

Finally a little ditty to Thibaut;

There once was Frenchman from Lille,
Who could cook crepes with chocolate and dill (yum!),
The combos kept rollin',
Till the rumanas (rum on bananas) start smokin'
And the whole damned contraption caught fire!  

Thibaut was the Masterchef behind the pan fried bananas with flaming white rum which was actually not to bad! We later tried microwaved banana with chocolate; this was a disaster... Hahahaha. Thanks for a great time in Lille Thibaut and Baptiste!