The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Classy pit stops en route to the Riviera
Anthony Peregrine pulls off the autoroute to explore Champagne country, the home of Charles de Gaulle and a stupendous aqueduct
When driving through France, there’s much to be said for roaring out of Calais and blasting Med-wards non-stop. Among the things to be said are that you’ll arrive bug-eyed and murderous, in the throes of divorce and having supplied your kids with blood-curdling material for the “my early life” chapters of their autobiographies.
The alternative is to dawdle, stopping here and there for little stretches to break up the motorway day, contemplate something interesting and eat calmly. I’m not talking overnight stops, just commas in the day’s sentence – places that aren’t too obvious, are easy to access (no traffic-ridden towns) and no more than 12 miles from a motorway junction. Going northsouth, stops might include:
1
Most of Western Europe’s wars have clattered through the Pas-deCalais. Reminders don’t come much more monstrous than the Eperlecques bunker, from which the Nazis were to rain V2 rockets down upon Britain. The forested hillside conceals, then reveals, concrete on the scale of two mangled multistorey car parks. Built in 1943 by slave labour, the bunker was finally KO’ed by Flying Fortresses. Expect a sobering hour or so. Then return to Nordausques where, on the main road through, the Café des Sports resembles a standard bar-tabac, but supplies smiles, two good courses, a drink and coffee for a tenner. Drive past only if you have money to burn. leblockhaus.com; adults €10 (£9), eight to 14-year-olds €6.50, family €30
EPERLECQUES ( Exit 2, A26) 2
VIMY RIDGE/NOTREDAME DE LORETTE
(Exit 6.1, A26)
More war, but it’s good to be reminded that not everyone comes to France for the cheese and gîtes. At Vimy Ridge, overlooking the Douai Plain, the most elegantly gigantic of Great War memorials (it’s like an enormous tuning fork) commemorates Canadian valour and ingenuity… in indicating how to attack apparently impregnable positions. Before Vimy, drive up to Notre-Dame de Lorette, France’s biggest First World War cemetery. Nearby, the gold panels of the 1,076ft Ring of Remembrance list the names of all 579,606 soldiers who died in this region in alphabetical order, regardless of nationality or rank. Lunch, northern-French style, at A l’Potée d’Léandre (alpotee.fr; mains from around £11). Then proceed to Vimy, before rejoining the A26 at junction 7.
3
HAUTVILLERS
(Exit signed to D951/Epernay, A4 by Reims)
The prettiest village in Champagne was base to Dom Pérignon, the 17th-century monk who didn’t, as claimed, invent bubbled wine but certainly improved it. He’s buried before the altar in the village church. Now wander. In Hautvillers, white-stone streets hung with wrought iron signs testify to well-aged, well-earned wellbeing – and Valérie Tribaut is among the most welcoming of champagne producers. From her tasting room, vineyards roll down to the river Marne, a swelling landscape of serenity. I’d buy enough to get through the hols – her Cuvée de Réserve is £15 a bottle – before lunch at the Au 36 (au36.net; platters around £16). champagne-tribaut-hautvillers.com
4
COLOMBEY-LES-DEUXÉGLISES
(Exit 23, A5)
Général de Gaulle died 50 years ago last November, reason enough to rootle about in his adopted home village. First to the churchyard, where the general is buried, with winning simplicity, next to his wife and daughter Anne. She had Down’s syndrome and benefited from fatherly tenderness not always evident in the general’s public life. A little further on is La Boisserie, the 19th-century maison-de-maître de Gaulle called home from 1934. You may visit parts, to discover he kept the hated telephone in a cupboard under the stairs. Below the vast Croix de Lorraine that dominates the farming landscape, the Charles de Gaulle Memorial museum celebrates a notable and exasperating life – lunch at La Table du Général on 54 Rue du Général-deGaulle ( latabledugeneral. fr; two courses for £17). charles-de-gaulle.org; joint ticket, Boisserie and Memorial £14, Boisserie £5, Memorial £11.50.
5
LANGRES
Popes and sovereigns rolled in to what was then one of the holiest sepulchres in the world
(Exit 6, A31)
“The most beautiful fortified town in France” – the recent internet poll wasn’t far wrong – oversees the landscape from an upturned soup-plate of a plateau, with several lakes within chucking distance. Nearest is the artificial Lac de la Liez, where you might pause for bathing. You might even stick around for lunch lakeside at Les Voiliers (three courses, £20). Or head for Langres itself, take the inclined lift up from the car park, romp around the ramparts and then amble the Renaissance streets, pretending you remember who Denis Diderot was – the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher, author, encyclopedist and native of Langres. The Maison-des-Lumières (musees-langres. fr; £6) tells the tale of a fellow who was