Not quite Marco Polo

Now we are back in France. Last time we were here was in 2007 and that was long before I had an SLR digital camera or a netbook or a blog. We picked up our hire car, an Opel Astra with built-in SatNav and as usual finding our way out of Charles de Gaulle Airport was a little tricky but we were soon on the road to Compienge where we had booked accommodation. We knew we were in France when on the way we were stopped by the police to allow a cycle race to pass. Next day (Sunday) it was raining but the country looked as beautiful as ever. When in doubt where to go - follow the brown signs (tourist attractions) or the green roads (scenic routes) on Michelin maps - so we went to Raray an imposing Chateau now a Golf Course cum Country Club. The attached village was also full of interesting houses.

Raray chateau in the rain.

On Monday we went driving around the Champagne country. Undulating country covered in vines and fields of wheat interspersed with bits of forest and along the roads often avenues of trees. The roses and irises are glorious and most villages have lots of flowerbeds and often some public land, beautifully kept with picnic tables. We found ourselves in Epernay and took a tour of Mercier. One of the attractions was that the tour was by Le Petit Train. The cellars are in chalk 30m below ground and the tunnels were dug by hand in the 1850s and 1860s (about 20km I think).

Self Explanatory - we trundled past long rows of these on Le Petit Train.

Looking down one of side tunnels.

Typical champagne countryside.

Everywhere in the beautiful countryside of Northern France are beautifully kept World War 1 cemeteries. This one is French at Verzy.

On Tuesday we followed the Champagne tour on a map we got from the tourist bureau. Every village seems to have several champagne cellars with the proprietor selling direct. It would be advisable to follow this route by bus with someone else driving.

Typical sign in a Champagne village.

Typical champagne cellar.

In Haut Villiers there are lots of these metal signs on the houses.

Just another attractive French house in Haut Villiers.

We did our shopping at the Carrefour in Chalons-en-Champagne. French supermarkets are something else - 30 or 40 checkouts (and a few self-service which are quite useless) and the range of fresh food is mind boggling and mouth watering. Long counters of cheeses, pates, fish, shellfish and dairy products to say nothing of wine etc aqnd a full range of boulangerie and patisserie products.

Part of the fish selection.

A few cheeses - imagine a whole long aisle.

A lot of the houses in the villages are of stone and the streets are often very narrow, but the speed limit is 50 kph which suits me as a tourist.

When we were here in 2007, we stumbled upon the 15th and 16thC half timbered churches in the Aube district near Troyes. We only had a reference to some of them in the Michelin Regional guide, but this year we got a proper map from the Tourist Bureau and with the Sat Nav we found them all. I know this holiday does sound as if it is turning into a church tour, but I am interested in history and in earlier times, churches were where people lavished most of their resources.

Irises and roses are everywhere.

I think this is Outines in the Aube district

Statue of St James at Lentilles.

The porch of Longsols church

Inside Longsols church showing the roof construction.

I am not sure where in the Christian pantheon this statue fits.

Saint Leger sous Margerie.

I will need to edit these church photos a bit, but I hope you get the idea of these 15thC and 16thC timber framed churches. They are all in one small area.

On Tuesday morning we finally went on the wings of Tatev cable car up to Tatev monastery. It is billed as the world's longest cable car at 5.7 km and spans the Vorotan River Gorge and the cable is 320m above the ground.

View from Wings of Tatev cable car.

Tatev Monastery showing its spectacular setting (Not my photo)

Inside the monastery church.

Old flax mill. It is too cold for olives,so the monastery used flax oil.

It is 228 km to Yerevan but it is very mountainous and the road surface is often poor. There are lots of lorries, many of them Iranian and they grind up the hills very slowly. There are also flocks of sheep and cattle. Our second monastery for the day was Noravank or new monastery. Once again the site is spectacular high on a cliff in a narrow gorge and constructed of reddish stone against a backdrop of the same red coloured cliff of the Amaghu Gorge. The church of St John the Baptist dates from about 1000 A.D.

Noravank Monastery in Gnishik Gorge.

Another view of Noravank.

Khachkar at Noravank

The architect Momik built the two storey church in 1339. The steps up to the entrance of the church are only about 15 cm wide. I gave them a miss! The photo above is a carving of God above the door to the mausoleum below the church.

Armenian stone masons loved decorative patterns.

The 1300 tombstone of this Orbellian prince shows him represented as a lion

It was a hot afternoon and the next stop in the coolness of a winery was very welcome. At the winery we sampled a good dry red made from Areni grapes - the local variety and also tried apricot, cherry and pomegranate wines. As we drove through the vineyards there were lots of roadside stalls selling homemade wines in large Coke bottles. Apparently their market is the Iranian truck drivers!

Wine tasting Armenia style

One more monastery for the day - Khor Virap where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned for 13 years. It was Gregory who converted the King to Christianity and thus lead to Armenia becoming the first country in the world to make Christianity the state religion in 301 A.D.

Khor Virap monastery very close to the Turkish border.

Baptismal font in the 18thC church at Khor Virap

. On Wednesday we explored Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It was founded in the 8th C B.C. - a few years before Rome but did not grow until the Soviet era. There are many high grade Soviet era buildings in Central Yerevan. Most of Yerevan is built of the local pinkish volcanic stone in dressed blocks about 40 cm square. Our hotel the Cascades was very well situated next to the Cascades. The Cascades, in Central Yerevan, are a giant staircase with flower beds and fountains as well as an indoor escalator.

The Cascades in central Yerevan

Looking out over Yerevan from the Cascades. Mount Ararat is just visible through the haze.

Susanna's tour of Yerevan took us first to the Matendaran Institute to look at the ancient manuscripts. Next to Howhannes Sharabeyan Folk art Museum, started in the 1930s and located in an interesting building with some lovely old ladies as custodians. It is worth visiting. There was time to visit the Armenian genocide memorial before lunch.

Examples of the medieval manuscripts.

A herbal in the Matendaran Institute

A salt cellar in the Folk Art Museum. Traditionally they are in the form of a pregnant woman - salt and life.

Fine Lace in the Folk art Museum.

The Armenium Memorial in Yerevan commemorating the genocide in Turkey between 1895 and 1922.

The afternoon's schedule was a drive out to Etchmiadzin cathedral, the mother church for the Armenian Apostolic Church, originally built on the site of a pagan temple in about 380 A.D.and unusually for an Armenian church it is decorated with frescoes. Among several other churches in the town is one dedicated to St Hripsime, a Roman nun martyred by the King of Armenia because she reused to give up Christianity and marry him.

Interior of Etchmiadzin cathedral. Unusually it is decorated with frescoes, from the 18thC.

Thursday 6th June was our last day in the Caucasus and we started in with a tour of the Noy Brandy distillery. Built over the site of the ancient Yerevan fortress, brandy production started here in 1887 and was reputed to have been Winston Churchill's favourite. It was an interesting tour, but the funniest incident was the Iranian tourist at the gate trying to organise a tour in Farsi over the phone with our guide who spoke no Farsi.

The Noy distillery was founded in 1877 on the site of the Erevan fortress and in the early days, the old tunnels were used to bring the harvest into the winery thus avoiding the hot sun. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in !991 the site became derelict, but since 2002 it has been completely restored and now has an interesting museum and immaculate grounds.

Bill, myself and Susanna sample Winston Churchill's favourite cognac (Armenian brandy is the only brandy not grown in Cognac, France allowed to use the appellation.