Friday 10th July – Week 4 – Drive to Troyes

After two educational days in Verdun, we are off to Troyes and the heart of Champagne country today. The start of the trip continues the WWI theme, with the drive from Verdun to Bar Le Duc being on the famous Voie Sacre – the sacred road. This is the road is WWI that was used to ship a constant stream of men and supplies to the front line. 8 quarries had to be developed along the 60km course of the road to create enough gravel to keep the road maintained. In order to maintain morale, men were constantly cycled in and out of Verdun. Any unit that lost 1/3 of its capability through death or injury we reassigned to a different location in the war. It is for this reason that 80% of French soldiers in WWI served in Verdun at one time or another. The Voie Sacre, today, is marked with kilometre markers, topped with a soldiers helmet.

Jane took us on a myriad of back roads, some of which amazed us as to her knowledge of the minutiae of the French countryside. The fist stop of the morning was at Bar Le Duc for a coffee au lait, pain au chocolat and a pain au raisin. From there is was on to Briemme Le Chateau, the cabbage capital of France. Approaching the town, the Chateau sits on top of a hill at the end of the main road into the town. It is not open to the public and learning the Briemme was the cabbage capital of France, we decided to move on. Briemme supplies 25% of the entire French cabbage requirements, although I suspect that in reality, 25% of the French cabbage tonnage, is a very similar figure to 25% of the Alsatian cabbage tonnage – bloody sauerkraut.

Arriving at Troyes, we headed first to the town centre for a look around and lunch. The town itself is very nice, with large squares and a nice mixture of modern, old and very old buildings. Some of the 15th century buildings are on an incredible lean and it would have been great to see what they were like on the inside. I can't belive that the floors are on the crazy angles of the outer beams, but as they aren't open to the public, who would know. After lunch, we headed excitedly for the campground for our last two nights of camping on the holiday. That evening, we headed into the town for a dinner of Andouilette de Troyes, a chitterling sausage made of stomach, tripe and other unmentionable bits, topped with fried shallots and a green salad. Despite the sound of it, it was actually very nice.