Unwinding after the rugby world cup final

Yes, it was a week of mixed feelings.  Sorry that SA will not play against France, hoping that France will at least not get a big hiding from NZ, getting angry for the arrogant NZ press.  Then we bought 2 kiwis from NZ at Saturday's morning market in Reims - to eat a kiwi before the match!  Nina spent Sa night with us, so she was forced to watch the match with us.  And decided it is the first and the last match she's watching with us, we're crazy.  But she was obliged to eat half a kiwi with us (which we only remembered of with less than 10 min of the match to go, so to late to ensure a victory, I fear!).  When I said at the end it is a good thing that we forgot to put champagne in the fridge, JL admitted he did remember.  So needless to say, the bottle is still in the fridge, as we really didn't feel like champagne :(

One thing we both have realised with yesterday's match though, is that we never want a rugby world cup knock out match between France & SA!  Only a friendly match, please.

So after dropping Nina in Reims and having lunch, we've decided to go for a long walk again.  After a cold week, with frost and thick fog in the mornings, we had a beautiful sunshine day without a cold wind.  For a change of scenery we took the car to the village on the other side of Verzy, Villers-Marmery.  Even though on this side of the Montagne, which is mainly Pinot Noir area, Villers-Marmery is the exception by being mainly Chardonnay area. 

Just above the village one can park the car where the vineyards meet the forest from where you can decide whether you want to walk through vineyards and/or the forest. 

We decided to walk a circle route (self invented) of about 2 hours through the forest.

The road leads to the main road linking the villages whereafter we've walked uphill through the vineyards to continue through the forest. While I was taking the photo below, JL was exploring which footpath we should take, as the way forked.

And it wasn't long or we've realised we have chosen a path of some wild animals.  The soil in this area is chalky, but here we've found clay soil.  And an overhanging rock forming a cave, with the date 1902 carved into it.

The road was very muddy in some places and with more forks in the road, we weren't always sure of which way to choose, but JL was confident he'll manage to get us back to the car.  I was just thinking I do not want to sleep in the forest, as the nights are already quite cold.

I was quite relieved when we've exit the small footpath and found ourselves on a bigger road in the forest that we know

The bigger roads are sign posted, not that we need it!

We were amazed that our adventurous road led us to a road less than 1 km from where the crowds are gathering in the Faux.  And happy that we could have an escape away from the crowds.

Although, it didn't took long before we started seeing the first signs of civilisation...

Fortunately we had to turn right towards Villers-Marmery, only us on the route!

On the way back to Verzenay we took a small road through the vineyards so that I could took more photos.  Unfortunately the sun was not in the right position and there was already some fog in the air. Can you spot the phare? 

At home, we had our fig harvest of the day before, waiting to be turned into jam (to be eaten with foie gras).  We had to go shopping on the Saturday afternoon (an even bigger nightmare than in SA!) to buy glass pots and a casserole to cook the jam in!