From the Beauty of the Ardennes, to luxury of Champagne

After a late morning start, the cars headed deeper into the Ardennes for a lunch stop in beautiful surroundings. Their destination lay in a gorge, more akin to Switzerland, than the French Belgian border. With several wrecked Sherman tanks in the village, the town had clearly seen multiple actions in World War Two. In fact it had been taken and retaken by both sides at various points. Under the watchful eye of it’s castle, crews made their way through the medieval town streets.

At a relaxed lunch with great food, the chance came to review the events of the preceding days, crews unanimously agreed they were ‘blown away’ already; and that was before the ‘Run had got into its core destinations.

Moving South for Reims, the roads delighted, as snaking gorges gave way to long Roman straights. The scenery changed from forest to cornfields, and then the first grapevines started to appear.