Champagne region biking on the Marne River

Lots of people like to make a day trip from Paris to the champagne region to do tastings and visit the cellars and most people will take a train to Reims or Epernay. These places do offer the largest selection of caves to visit and places to do tastings and many of the most prestigious producers are indeed in these places. But there are so many small local producers that can be found in the small towns and villages scattered throughout the region and many of them can be accessed by the local trains that run between Paris and Epernay. This train route runs along the Marne River and once you get past Meaux the vineyards will start appearing on the steep slopes along the river in the town of Nanteuil-sur-Marne and continue all the way to Epernay. Although the champagne region is not noted for its breathtaking natural beauty and scenery there are nonetheless many scenic places in this area with some of the best scenery right along the Marne River between Nanteuil and Epernay.

We've been having some terrific summer weather and since I had some free time I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather to do a bike ride along the Marne river between the towns of Nanteuil-sur-Marne and Chezy-sur-Marne. Nanteuil is located in zone 5 so I decided to do a loop starting and ending in Nanteuil so I could use a one day Mobilis Pass to leave from and return to Paris, since the zone 1-5 pass only costs 15.65€. My plan was to do a mix of riding along the river but also to pass through some of the villages and do some steep climbs up the slopes next to the river and ride on the dirt roads that criss-cross the vineyards, taking advantage of the heights to get great views of the valley and distant vistas.

I'll interrupt to mention that although I did this journey by bike you could certainly take a train to any number of villages where the train stops along the river and then walk to some of the champagne cellars of the small local producers and also take in some scenic walks/hikes. Sticking to the route I followed the train stops in Nanteuil-sur-Marne, Nogent-l'Artaud and Chezy-sur-Marne. If you get off at Nanteuil you can walk about 2km to 3km to the village of Croutes-sur-Marne. Here's a link that shows you a few houses you could visit, although I saw more than this:

www.vignerons-independants-champagne.com/VIGNERONS_INDEPENDANTS_CHAMPAGNE_WEB/fr/carte_commune_vigneron_independant.awp?sousregion=1&commune=02242

I think Nogent-l'Artaud might be a better stop as it is a really charming little village and you can walk across the river to Saulchery to visit some cellars and just a couple kilometers west of Saulchery you'll arrive in Charly-sur-Marne, which has even more champagne producers.

Here are links to some producers in Charly-sur-Marne:

www.charly-sur-marne.fr/pages.asp?rubid=84093&srubid=103604

Saulchery:

www.champagne-bernard-figuet.fr/

www.champagne-joel-closson.com/

www.champagne-gioria-latizeau-saulchery.fr/

Chezy-sur-Marne:

www.champagne-petit.com/

derekeneirepetit.free.fr/


There are hiking trails all along the river in this area and there are loads of places to find out about them on the web. Here's a site that will outline a 38km loop along the Marne called Les Balcons de la Marne, although you can just walk short stretches without doing the whole loop:

www.randonner.fr/Circuit/Les-balcons-de-la-Marne/%28offset%29/16/%28zone%29/74/%28search%29/1

I would say your best bet is to drop into one of the local tourist offices as they will always have loads of brochures and pamphlets about hikes and many other things that you just won't find on-line or in guidebooks. I stopped in the tourist office in Charly-sur-Marne and picked up at least 20 or 30 brochures about various things to do in the region and among some of the things I picked up were brochures with maps of hikes in the area.

But I digress so let's get back to my day of biking. Arriving in Nateuil-sur-Marne and got my first glimpse of the vineyards.





A brief ride through Nanteuil.






I was going to try to tell you something about Nanteuil but when I googled ''tourisme nanteuil sur marne'' the page that I found said ''La ville de Nanteuil-sur-Marne n'a pas de monument historique''. Translated, this says ''The village of Nanteuil has no historic monuments''. Well alright then, guess I'll just move along.




Arriving in Crouttes-sur-Marne.





The regional tourist authorities promote a touristic Champagne Trail Route (Route Touristique du Champagne) that you can follow throughout the region and which you can learn more about on this tourist office site:

www.champagne-ardenne-tourism.co.uk/champagne/default.aspx


Croutes-sur-Marne promotes itself as the first town on this route.




If you want to mingle with the locals then the center of village life is always the bar tabac, which in Crouttes is the building with orange awning in the next photo.






Leaving the village I decided to head towards the river and see if there was a trail I could follow. I had done some brief web research on roads and trails in the area prior to my exploration. I used my Michelin map and google maps and through that combination came up with some vague ideas for routes. The problem was that the Michelin maps don't show the local roads and in looking at google maps it was evident that most of the ''roads'' they were showing were probably dirt tracks through vineyards or some farmer's field. So at this point it was time to throw maps and plans out the window and just see what happens. I like doing that. I went down a dirt trail from the village, between peoples yards and gardens.....



…..and arrived at the river.




There were a couple of benches next to the river so I decided to take a seat and eat my picnic lunch and then get on with the day. After lunch I decided to ride up the steep river bank behind Crouttes and take in the hilltop vistas of the region, passing through vineyards along the way.




Going uphill.