In every little place we visit there is the town hall - Hotel de Ville. Some are more impressive than others, this is Fismes. We are travelling on May 1st, which is a major public holiday. There are flowers, mainly Lilly-of-the-valley, for sale everywhere. It is difficult to find somewhere serving food but we locate a brasserie selling toasties, the hosts are Delores (a platinum blond) & Patrick (an old rocker)
We arrive in Reims and find a car park right besides this wall that was built in 300AD. Because it is a public holiday, there is no traffic and we enjoy driving around.
Reims is a bit bigger than Fismes, so their Hotel de Ville reflects their size.
and so the Champagne experience begins - we turn into the village where we are to stay, Rilly-le-Montagne and are greeted with .... Tattinger. 
The vines are very low, to reduce the impact of frost. Our host says this is very hard on the back.
I pay the due respect at the 'holy grail' - Allee Dom Perignon :)
Yes - more stained glass, I warned you I could bore you with it!
A great number of battles were fought in this region. Each village has their Hotel de Ville, a patisserie and a war memorial.
The patisseries are magnificent. The vanilla slices are easily, by far, the best we have EVER eaten. Not sure now if this little tyre I have around my middle is from beer or cake!
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