Goal #1: First Night Stop

Thanks to the good kind Captain Bernie Winters (see Officer & A Gentleman blog) getting beyond Paris on day one is the objective… In fact I have chosen Troyes in the Champagne-Ardenne region as it.

Troyes is a prehistoric settlement first overrun by Celtic immigrants (oh how times change) and first written about in the 2nd century BC by a Greek chip shop magnate (only much later did they become well known as shipping magnates).

Interestingly in 451 AD their good Bishop Guadeloupe married Attila the Hun in order to save the city from rampage. A fate the holy man came to know only too well.

A few hundred years after that, King Louie joyously usurped the then ruler known as Bald Charlie and decided to be crowned there – rubbing it in a bit I think, but these are French guys.

Luckily the whole place burned down in 1524 and unsurprisingly the French locals rejoiced in the chance to embrace modern town planning : or what passed for it in the 16th century.

Anyway, given all this history I decided to go back in time and choose Le Coteau de L’orme to sleep in!

Literally translated as “Elmy Nodule” – quite fitting.

Close by is the famous windmill – Le Moulin Dosches – Guinness world record holder for being officially the slowest turning windmill in the whole world. Also close by is the Orient Forest (also a record holder: smallest and wateriest forest in the EU but I guess that will have to change soon).

The owner, Veronique – who makes a lovely salad with grapes and that in it – has already sent me a welcome message in a very acceptable English so I am looking forward to my included breakfast. No doubt I can blog about that one.

So this will be the first leg of my journey – mostly by motorway and toll road (I will share the actual route later when I’ve decided) – Nottingham to Folkestone, train to Calais then Calais to Troyes!

A long run but it’s well on the way to the south where the sun and the mountains call!