June 14, 2023
Ay Loop Ride 2 - Visit to Reims
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One last hurrah. That is what todays ride felt like. We are heading to Reims in the car this afternoon but wanted to get out and enjoy this beautiful country side one last time on the bikes.
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For todays route we had a few constraints to work with. We had to match our time requirements with our desired to have a relaxed cup of coffee in the morning. We wanted some hills for the views but a short length so we could head to Reims early afternoon. I thought it would also be nice to bring it home with a possible tail wind assisted westerly ride along the canal path. With a little bit of fiddling in komoot we had a route that matched our requirements.
The route turned out to be ideal and we rolled along easily soaking up the sunshine, the vines and the views. We stopped a lot for photos and second morning coffee in and appropriately named town for the Champagne region, Bouzy. The canal path home delivered as expected and we even got the slight tail wind.
By the time we got to Reims in the afternoon the day was hot and we were glad we had changed our plan to ride to Reims and back as we would have been riding back into a very hot afternoon sun. We visited the Cathedral and then went for a walk around the center of Reims. It is a beautiful city but we were not sad that we decided to stay in the much smaller Ay for the last few nights instead of coming over here. The rides in the country side around Ay have been much more spectacular than what we would have had in Reims.
Kathy has been looking for some sparkly shoes to take back for our granddaughter Raelynn and while standing in a shoe shop we bumped into a fellow Australian, Jay. Jay was waiting for his daughter to select some new shoes and I started the usually travel conversation about how long, where, when. As we were leaving Jay come over and said one thing he did in Reims that was good was the Musee de la Reddition (Museum of Surrender). We had not heard of it but with some quick googling we set off back across the park to the museum.
The museum is not much more than a movie theatre and the room were the unconditional surrender document was signed but it was worth going to. The movie explained that the Germans surrender to the Allies in this rom at 2:41 am on May 7 1945 ending hostilities in the next 48 hours. Due to political considerations with the Russian leaders a second document and signing ceremony had to be held in Berlin two days latter which is the ceremony that I had heard more about as the official end of the war.
The room where the Germans surrendered to the Allies. It was the command room for the allied forces before the Surender.
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After a nice afternoon in Reims we headed back to Ay to go out for dinner at a restaurant we had booked. The restaurant had high ratings but turned out to be disappointing as the services was extremely slow. The food was ok but did not make up for 2 1/2 hours it took for it to arrive. After we had a nice stroll back to our B&B which made for a good end to a good day.
Today's ride: 22 miles (35 km)
Total: 655 miles (1,054 km)
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