Coteaux d’Hautvillers and Palace and Park of Fontainebleau

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Coteaux d’Hautvillers

   On the hill above Hautvillers, the rows of vines run straight down to the Marne, and the colour changes with the season: bare, brown and clipped in winter, green in summer and red-gold in October. This is the cradle of Champagne, or at least one of its most famous corners. The Benedictine abbey of Saint-Pierre, in the village, was home to the monk Dom Pérignon in the late seventeenth century, who did not invent the sparkling wine, as legend says, but improved its making and blending, and whose name now belongs to a prestige cuvée.

   Read the complete Coteaux d’Hautvillers write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Coteaux d’Hautvillers is where the day begins. Next is Provins.

2. 2. Provins

   Provins rises out of the wheat fields of the Brie like something from a film set, and the odd thing is that it is almost entirely real. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries this was one of the four great fair towns of the counts of Champagne, where merchants from Flanders, Italy and beyond met to trade cloth, spices and money. When the fairs declined, Provins simply stopped growing, and so its ramparts, its gates and its medieval upper town survived the centuries more or less intact. UNESCO listed it in 2001 as a rare surviving example of a medieval fair town.

   Read the complete Provins write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Provins comes up 83 km in. Next is Palace and Park of Fontainebleau.

3. 3. Palace and Park of Fontainebleau

   Fontainebleau is the palace French kings actually lived in, as opposed to the one they built to impress, and for that reason it feels more human than Versailles. Almost every monarch from the Middle Ages to Napoleon III added a wing, a staircase or a garden, so the place is a jumble of styles, held together by its forest and its long ponds. Napoleon called it the true home of kings, and in April 1814 he said goodbye to his Old Guard in the courtyard that is still known as the Cour des Adieux, at the foot of the horseshoe staircase.

   Read the complete Palace and Park of Fontainebleau write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   166 km in you reach Palace and Park of Fontainebleau. Next is back through Provins.

4. 4. back through Provins

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Provins write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Provins, late in the day. Next is Coteaux d’Hautvillers.

5. 5. Coteaux d’Hautvillers

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Coteaux d’Hautvillers write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Coteaux d’Hautvillers. That is the ride.