As an enthusiastic walker, my ideal holiday is to spend several days walking from place to place, exploring somewhere new by the very best way to see it: on foot.  This autumn, I finally acheived a long-held ambition to walk in the Champagne region, a trip that had to be cancelled in 2020 during the Covid epidemic.  Accompanied by a set of trusty Classic Canes folding trekking poles (the most convenient model if you are flying), this is the glorious walk we enjoyed:

The Champagne region is easy to reach: we flew to Paris Orly, took a taxi to Gare Paris d'Est, then a SNCF train direct to Epernay.  We were soon exploring its Avenue de Champagne, which is like a Bond Street of champagne houses: Moet* & Chandon with its famous statue of Dom Perignon (who contrary to myth did not invent champagne: the English did, but that's another story), Perrier-Jouet, Pol Roger and many other famous names.  We enjoyed a couple of glasses at Champagne Collard-Picard, a smaller grower and producer and studied the Institut Geographique National (IGN) maps (equivalent to our Ordnance Survey maps) of the route ahead.

In perfect walking conditions (not too hot, not too wet) we walked through Epernay, heading north to the village of Mardeuil, where we saw our first vines.  Walking through the village, we passed many champagne producers, mostly unknown to us.  Part of the reason for the trip was to discover the champagnes of smaller producers as well as the large houses.  The names seem so romantic: Arnaud Billard, Charlot-Tanneux, Dubois, Lemile Leclere and Joanne Liote et Fils.  We are walking on national footpaths called Grandes Randonnees (GR).  Today was on GR14 according to our map, but it was labelled G15 on the ground: peu importe.  Still heading north, we crossed the railway line and then the wide valley of the Marne, the scene of one of the First World War's most important battles: the Battle of the Marne in September 2014.  Hundreds of thousands of men died in a few days: it seems so peaceful today.

We crossed the bridge over the Marne into Cumieres, a premier cru village that also grows red wine for use in the production of rose champagne, passing producers such as Blosseville-Marniquet and Maurice Delebeye et Fils.  We headed on steeply uphill on a little lane heading for Hautvillers, famous for its Benedictine abbey where Dom Perignon (1638 to 1725) was cellar master.  There is a new bronze statue of him in the village, where he is depicted as half man, half champagne bottle, and which can apparently hold an impressive 360 bottles of champagne.  Lunch was at Au 36, where we had delicious casseroles, bread and nougat ice cream.

During the afternoon, we walked on GR15 through the Foret Domaniale de Hautvillers to Champillon and then on through woodland tracks to Mutigny.  A sign board informed us that there are wolves in these woods and showed us the pawprints to look out for, which was a surprise and we kept a good lookout for loups after that.  We walked through Mutigny to find our hotel, the Loisium wine hotel and spa, a wooden and glass building on the edge of town with fabulous views over the vineyards and a vast array of champagnes on the menu.  We started with a glass each of Joseph Perrier Cuvee Royale Brut Nature as we had walked past their vineyards on the way to Hautvillers, and later tried champagnes by JL Vergnon, Boizel and Ayala.

We were back on GR15 by 9.40am, skirting the north side of Avenay-Val-d'Or, a picturesque premier cru village that contains many smaller champagne producers.  Climbing uphill through woodland, we had lovely views back to our hotel before dropping downhill into Fontaine-sur-Ay.  Leaving the village, we passed an interesting historic fortified farm, presumably to keep the English out, on our way to Mutry and Tauxieres, also premier cru.  By the time we reached Louvois (grand cru), lunch was becoming a priority but the boulangeries were both closed.  Our phones promised us a 24-hour pizzeria on the edge of the village, but this turned out to be a pizza vending machine, a novelty to us.  It took three minutes to cook a pizza and popped it out of a slot in a cardboard box.  This was amusing but didn't solve our water shortage. Luckily a charming young man at Champagne Faye gave me a 1.5L bottle of water, bemused by this hiker who arrived at his tasting facility in search of water rather than champagne.

We then resumed the GR15 heading east, walking on the edge of the Foret de Reims where it meets the vineyards.  We passed quarries that show exactly how deep and white the chalk soil is here.  We were also delighted to see the Azure de Serpolet, a glorious blue butterfly that has died out in the UK.  The path continued to weave in and out of the woods, watching the men at work in the vineyards, wedding and trimming.  We had lovely views of Bouzy to the south and the neighbouring village of Ambonnay, both grand cru villages, only a few fields apart.  Back in the woods, Malcolm was delighted to find a large, wavy-edged fungus in a tree, while I was just as thrilled with my discovery of what was quite clearly a fresh wolf pawprint.  We also saw lot of signs of wild boar: piggy footprints and much rootling in the soil.

We emerged from the woods again to skirt the top of the premier cru village of Trepail, before heading downhill into Villers-Marmery (premier cru) to our very comfortable B&B at Le Escapade Champenois.  Our hosts, Laurence and Samuel, cooked us a delicious dinner as there was no restaurant in town; we ate this at their garden table, observed by their two plump ginger cats.

After a classic French breakfast of baguettes, Bonne Maman jam and hot chocolate, we bade farewell to Laurence, agreeing the weather didn't look too bad.  The heavens opened in a huge downpour before we reached the boulangerie on the other side of the street and a concerned old lady asked if we had a parapluie.  She clearly thought we were quite mad.  The boulangerie supplied ham and cheese baguettes (no more pizza vending machines for us), which we stashed in our rucksacks before heading back to GR15, being passed by vineyard tractors on their way to work.   Once back on the path, we walked north-east in the direction of Verzy (grand cru), passing vineyards with Veuve Cliquot marker stones.

Then it was back into the woods of the Grand Montagne de Reims.  We passed Verzy on the west side on our way to Verzenay (also grand cru).   Verzenay is noted for two unusual landmarks on facing hills: a lighthouse (among a sea of vines) and a windmill.  The lighthouse is the Phare, originally built to promote a vineyard and now restored and used as a museum of champagne.  We climed the 104 steps to the top and adored the view of vines rolling away into the distance.  They also offer tastings so we tried De Carlim Caron Cuvee Passion and their Rose de Saigree Brut, which is unusual because the pink colour comes from crushing the skins of the Pinot Meunier grapes rather than from the usual method of adding a little red wine.

Leaving the village by an enormous lime kiln, we turned off the road onto the vineyard track to pass the Moulin de Vents, now owned by Champagne Mumm.  Here we crossed the D26 and joined a new Grand Randonee, number 654, stopping shortly afterwards for our picnic on an old stone mounting block below the west side of the windmill.  The view was spectacular, sat there among the ripening grapes.  Once on our way again on the lane below, we passed marker stones for many illustrious brands such as Bollinger, Louis Roederer, Mailly and Ruinart.  We then had a slightly hair-raising walk along the side of the D308 into Sillery, crossing bridges over the railway line and the Autoroute de l'Est (A4).  Sillery did not seem wildly exciting to us although we were interested to see the Necropole Nationale de Sillery-Bellvue with its Art Deco chapel: over 11,000 French soldiers are buried here, casualties of the defence of Reims during the First World War.

It is possible to walk beside the canal into Reims on the GR, but we wanted sightseeing time so we took the E5 bus into Reims and found our hotel, La Caserne Chanzy, near the cathedral.  The gothic cathedral is magnificent, especially with the saints and kings illuminated by the night-time floodlighting.  Dinner, with Mumm champange to start with to honour the windmill, was at the Brasserie le Boulingrin at 31 rue de Mars: an old-fashioned brasserie with terrific food and a charming waiter who pretended to understand every word of my French.  Now we are in Reims, we had local Champagne Henriot Brut Souverain with our starters, which was a delight.  Walking home through the town, we looked at the sobering damage from warfare to the town hall and other buildings where shrapnel and bullet holes can still be seen.

Having finished our Grand Randonnee, we still had some more walking to do: half an hour through Reims to the Veuve Clicquot headquarters at 1 rue Albert Thomas.  We had booked a tour of the cellars followed by a tasting and what an experience it was.  Our guide took us down into the Veuve Clicquot cellars, carved out of the white chalk sixty feet below ground.  We learned about the history of the company, founded in 1772 and especially about the formidable widow herself, Barbe Nicole Clicquot and her many contributions to champagne-making, not least her insistence on "Only one quality: the best!" when pressed to make a cheaper and worse alternative by her customers.  A principle we subscribe to at Classic Canes too.  In one room, the air was perfumed in turn with the scent of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier so we could appreciate the differences; I have no idea how they did this.  We finished the tour in a beautiful, cone-shaped cave with a huge round tasting table where we tried a special version of the Famous yellow label cuvee, an extra brut, a 2015 vintage and a 2015 vintage rose. 

We planned our Champagne walk ourselves with the help of the IGN maps 2713E, 28130 and 28120, on which the GR routes are clearly marked.  We found very little specific information on the internet about how to do this, so hope this blog may help others who would like to do a similar walk.

Charlotte Gillan

Managing Director, Classic Canes

* I apologise now, especially to our French friends, that there are no accents anywhere in this story for tedious technical reasons.  Sorry!