I wake the next morning after my whirlwhind spin around Paris, checking the time I see it’s 7am. “Woohoo, I actually got 8 hours sleep!” But that doesn’t really seem like enough given how long I’ve been on the go. Anywho, it’s up for breakfast and out to the airport to collect my little Eurolease Peugeot. I bid farewell to the little hostel and remember to grab a quick snap as I’m heading for the Metro:
Back out at CDG Airport again I find the Eurolease pickup point and complete the paperwork. Sitting on the ‘wrong’ side of the car I familarise myself with the GPS system and ready myself for my attack on the roads surrounding Paris. Negotiating this:
as my first taste of driving on the ‘right’ side of the road was just ever so slightly daunting. Thoughts after the the first few hundred meters were along the lines of “OH MY GOD how am I going to survive doing this for the next 25 days?! My brain is going to explode or I’m going to drive into someone.” Thankfully that settled down after the first couple of kilometers and within a day I was completely at home.
Now, the primary reason I went for a car over public transport was so that I could stop whenever I saw something interesting. I wasted no time in doing that on route to Chalons, stopping to get some snaps of a WWI cemetery just outside Soissons.
Next stop on the way to Chalons was Reims. And unlike Notre Dame de Paris, Notre Dame de Reims had no massive queues to get inside. So in I go.
And after Reims, there was more roadside stoppage on route. The expansive unfenced fields make an attractive scene. Now, the smoggy air bothers me, but I’ve been told it adds some charm to the image by given the sunbeams… I’m undecided…
And by the end of the day I arrive in Chalons-en-Champange, and look, another Cathedral…
As the sun sets I manage to find the house of my first CouchSurfing hosts Sam and Audrey. I’m in need of an early night, but we end up chatting past midnight…