Europesure Travel Insurance clients across Europe will be popping the champagne corks to welcome in the New Year 2025, but how many will be using their annual travel insurance policies to cover a trip to north east France, to the home of the hugely popular fizz? In case the answer is 'a fair few', here are some Europesure travel tips.
The Champagne region is one for both the wine connoisseur, and anyone with a nose for a great travel experience, to enjoy to the full. Situated around 90 miles east of Paris, it is a region in which the world’s most celebratory tipple is embedded in everyday life and part and parcel of the soul of the destination. You literally cannot escape the fact that champagne is an integral element within the cultural identity of every person who has been raised in this area and the very essence of the tourism experience here.
This is clear to see in the region’s capital, Épernay, where the world-renowned Avenue de Champagne is home to the world’s most prestigious champagne houses, including the iconic Moet & Chandon. The avenue is part of the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2015. Overall, this comprises 14 different locations that represent the entire process of cultivating, making and selling champagne.
Visiting the champagne houses of Épernay and beyond
In Épernay, the chance to visit the champagne houses – and the champagne bars dotted along the Avenue de Champagne – will probably prove irresistible, but more lies beneath, as our Europesure travel tips show. The champagne houses store millions of bottles of champagne and have a whole sub-terranean world to explore, if you venture into their depths to learn about the whole glorious process of champagne-making.
If you venture to Champagne Mercier, you can enjoy a ride through the cellars on a little train. At Champagne de Castellane, the attraction may be the tower that affords glorious views over Épernay. Guided tours are on offer from several of the champagne houses, and at Ruinart, you can visit the deepest and finest hand-dug crayères (chalk tunnels) around and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The entrance fee is not insignificant but you can explore a labyrinth that covers 8 km, 40 metres underground.
Pommery shows off its own 18 km of subterranean glories with the crayères hosting the works of worldwide contemporary artists. On site, the Villa Demoiselle also boasts an incredible collection signed by the greatest Art Nouveau artists, including Majorelle, Serurrier-Bovy, Selmersheim, Daum and Gallé.
When compiling our Europesure travel tips, we also discovered that art and champagne also mix at Perrier-Jouët, which treats visitors to gourmet experiences in Maison Belle Epoque – which provides huge talking points around its Art Nouveau collection.
Perhaps one of the most interactive experiences is to be had at Pressoria, the new interactive and immersive museum in Pommery’s pressing room in Aïj-Champagne, which encourages those stepping inside to really tap into all of their five senses when exploring the story of champagne production. This involves tasting, using the nose to detect different grape varieties and calling upon the help of touchscreens to deliver more information about champagne and the area in which it has become such a tour de force.
Photo by Oceane Picq on Unsplash
More Europesure travel tips: how to track down Dom Perignon
If you venture to the village of Hautvillers, known as the ‘Cradle of Champagne’ and situated five kilometres to the north of Épernay, you can visit Champagne Desruets but also tread in the footsteps of the renowned monk, Dom Pérignon, the former Grand Cellérier of the Abbeye d’Hautvillers. This is the man to whom the invention of champagne is attributed, after he mastered turning wine into champagne, at the end of the 17th century.
Moet & Chandon, which produces Dom Perignon champagne, now owns the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre d’Hautvillers, so this is not open to the public. However, the tomb of Dom Pérignon can be found in St-Sindulphe church.
Exploring Hautvillers, a village of 140 signs which each depict a trade or activity that took place in the village properties in the Middle Ages, is a real joy, offering a degree of quaintness and historical connectivity that is compelling.
But, if you want to step further back in time, head to La Cave aux Coquillages, in Fleury-la-Rivière, which examines life in the region 45 million years ago, exploring the region’s geology and exhibits such as Lutetian fossils.
The joys of the Champagne landscape
With so many kilometres of vineyards all around, there is a seasonal element to be enjoyed in nature here. In springtime, it is the “bud burst”, when the first buds appear on the vines. In summer, it is the sight of grapes ripening and glorious views across the terrain. Move to late August and September and it is all about the harvest, with this process managed entirely by hand and celebrated at the end of October with festivals and concerts staged on Champagne Day.
Then there is winter, when the landscape takes on a different hue and identity again and preparations start to be made for the feast day of St Vincent, patron saint of vine-growers/winemakers, on January 22. In the festive period, the champagne houses put on dramatic light shows and show off their courtyards to those still treading a land of chalk plains and hills that provides the perfect environment for champagne.
Things to see and do in Reims
A trip to the Champagne region would not be complete without a visit to Reims, a city whose cathedral was lovingly restored after post-war damage and where the Christmas market now pulls in many tourists.
However, all year round it offers up the delights of its restored Notre Dame Cathedral. This is larger than its Parisian namesake, and sports 2303 sculptures on its facades, including all-essential gargoyles. The stained glass here celebrates Dom Perignon and his champagne exploits, whilst outside you will find a statue of another French hero, Joan of Arc, who came to Reims in 1429 for the coronation of Charles VII.
If you fancy going up the cathedral towers, you can do so by heading to the Palais du Tau,
worth visiting in its own right, as it was the place at which the Kings of France stayed before their coronations. Twenty minutes away from the cathedral by foot, you will also find the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Ancienne Abbaye Saint Remi, a basilica and museum with glorious architecture in the Gothic and Romanesque styles.
Whilst in Reims, you could also take a tour bookable from the tourist office, to explore the streets of the city with a guide and take in the Art Deco and Art Nouveau glories that arrived in Reims’ streets and neighbourhoods in the post-World War I period.
During your walk through the cobbled streets, you can perhaps call in to the largest market in the city, the covered Art Deco Halles Du Boulingrin and maybe also the oldest cookie factory in France – the Fossier. Here, you can learn all about Reims’ famous pink cookie and, of course, sample some too. If it’s more exquisite dining you are after, worry not. There are also five Michelin-starred restaurants to tempt.
Outdoor fun in the Champagne region
If you fancy burning off some calories, the Champagne region has a proliferation of cycle ways to venture along. This includes the cycling, jogging and walking routes along the Coulée Verte, a green strip of land that crosses Reims and which runs for 17 km, on a flat, easy course, following the Aisne river, down to the Marne Canal. Hiring an e-bike is one way to tackle the Champagne region’s hillier zones, or you could really get to the heart of the region by taking up a Grape Picker for a Day experience.
With a captive air balloon that can have you soaring 150m over the vineyard landscape and the 1909 Verzenay Lighthouse, from which you can gain 360° views from a lower height, if you pay admission to lighthouse and museum, there is every opportunity to get a great perspective of the life that underpins your New Year bubbly.
Europesure travel tips and travel insurance advice
If you take that up, just remember to buy either a single trip or annual travel insurance policy to cover your adventures, making sure that this will protect you if you do something more adventurous, whether that is hot air ballooning, riding an e-bike or working at a vineyard.
And, if taking your own bike with you, you can pack a policy that will cover those wheels, through a very handy add-on to your Europesure travel insurance protection.
Whether its physical or fizzical fun that you want, Champagne can certainly provide it. Do just remember that alcohol and travel insurance claims don’t mix, so go easy on the bubbles and enjoy the Grand cuvées in moderation.
