Sunday 12th July – Week 4 – Best meal of the holiday

We are now in Chalons en Champagne for a night in a hotel before heading back to Paris on Monday to drop off the car and spend the final 4 days in the French capital, including Bastille Day on Tuesday.

Jane took us on an interesting drive to our little hotel called Les Clos Des Mutigny in a tiny town called Chaussee Sur Marne, which is about 20kms from Chalons-en-Champagne. Chaussee was on the way to Chalons, so we stopped their on the way to check out the hotel. The town is indeed tiny, the hotel very nice, but when we arrived was in full swing with a wedding after party, so we headed to Chalons for some sightseeing.

On our arrival into Chalons, we were hit by a rain shower, and as this is Sunday, absolutely nothing except the church and a few restaurants were open, so we wandered round abit until we found a restaurant where we had what is our best meal of the holiday. Salad, Steak for me, pork casserole for Anne, then a crème Brulee to die for followed by coffee.

Despite our best efforts at reducing the amount of luggage we take, Anne is just folding up the little bags that Singapore Airlines gave us with a pair of socks, toothpaste and toothbrushes. We won't keep the socks, but apparently the rest of it may come in handy some time, so we'll keep that, including the unfashionably brown nylon bags. Note to self – check to see if those little toothpaste things end up in her handbag back at home at any stage. Our luggage including the bag, but excluding the camping gear weighed 14kgs when we left New Zealand, so we have done very well with travelling light. The camping gear added an extra 17kgs, but next time we'd buy a lot of that when we get here.

We are now having a quiet night in the hotel having taken everything out of the car and for the first time in 4 weeks packed it all back into just two bags. No more using the boot of the car as a wardrobe and no more camping. We've really enjoyed that aspect of our holiday and now have a drive into Paris to look forward to, followed by a drive up the Champs Elysee, round the Arc De Triomphe and then 5ks to the Peugeot dealership. By the time you read this, I will know whether the short 100m round the Arc D' Triomphe ended in tears, or whether I survived one of the craziest roundabouts in the world – I look forward to the challenge.