We got up and found the women’s 5th Battalion had checked out and also managed to use up all the hot water!!We booked to visit Lanson Champagne House at 10am; when we showed up we were told our guide was in a meeting and to come back laters. So we went to see the Surrender Museum which was where the Germans signed the treaty to surrender during the 2nd World War.

We got back to Lanson for our tour and they still weren’t ready for us so they decided not to charge us for the tour (saved 16 Euro). The tour of the plant was impressive and the cellars were dug inside the hill. We also had a couple glasses of their Black label bubbly, the tour lady was very helpful and recommended a village called ‘Hautville’ to see smaller champagne houses which was en-route to Epernay which was where our next Champagne House stop was (Mercier).

As we approached in to Hautville, it was part of the Champagne trail and it was more like wine tasting rather than a tour of the place. You reach a Champagne place and they invite you in for tastings (several glasses each); we did pick up a bottle or 2 at each stop.Mercier Champagne House was our final place of the day, built in to a hill. It had an electric train tour of the cellars and the lifts down to the cellars had see through glass viewing periods of the Champagne House years. By the end of today our car had 20 bottles of Champagne in the boot.

Another coach turned up at the hotel, unfortunately filled with school kids. The walls of the hotel were so thin, the kids were running up and down the corridors knocking on the doors. So you can imagine the lack of sleep we had.