Brie is a cheese before it is a place for most people, but the plateau east of Paris that gave the cheese its name is a real landscape: wide, flat and fertile, with huge fields of wheat and sugar beet, scattered farms with walled courtyards and patches of forest. Tournan-en-Brie is a small town on this plateau, with an old church and a railway station that links it to the capital, and it makes a practical stop on the edge of the countryside.
The plateau may look monotonous at first, but it has its own charm. The skies are huge, the light changes constantly, and the villages, with their stone churches and farmhouses, have a quiet dignity. Nearby, the château of Ferrières, built in the nineteenth century for the Rothschild family, is a spectacular piece of Second Empire architecture set in a large park, worth a detour if you have time. To the south, the forests of Armainvilliers and Crécy offer shade and quiet roads.
Roads are straight and wide, linking villages across the plateau, with occasional curves around forests and valleys. Wind can be a factor on the open fields, and tractors are common, especially at harvest time. Traffic is moderate, but the roads near Paris can be busy at rush hour.
Tournan has fuel, supermarkets, bakeries and cafés. A slice of Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun, the two protected versions of the cheese, with a fresh baguette makes a perfect picnic. Beyond, the ride heads west towards the Eure valley, gentler and greener, with rivers, mills and châteaux.